Editor’s note: The Daily World reporter Michael S. Lockett embedded with the Ocean Shores Fire Department on the Fourth of July.

For the Ocean Shores Fire Department, the Fourth of July starts months before I’m headed down state Route 109, driving behind the lifted GMC Denali as it bounces between the shoulder and the centerline on this bright coast morning.

“We start about April. This year was the first time we brought all the different organizations — not just fire agencies but all the organizations that take place on the Fourth of July,” said Fire Chief Brian Ritter. “In years past we would hire outside firefighters to come help us. This year we thought we’d be able to handle it on our own since it fell in the middle of the week.”

On the Fourth, it’s still cool out. The traffic isn’t bad as I head out around 10:30 in the morning, and downright anemic going the other direction.

As I arrived at OSFD’s main station, it’s thrumming with activity. Ritter and Assistant Chief Mike Mandella are washing the chief’s car as other rigs are checked over by firefighters moving with mysterious purpose, sorting out which gear is on which truck. Out back of the station, a bulldozer sits on a trailer: a contingency for a major fire, when time is critical.

Firefighters at the Ocean Shores Fire Department ready sandwiches on the Fourth of July. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)

Already, the steady pop of fireworks can be heard from the station, smoke stippling the sky.

Dune fires are a particular concern of Ritter’s, this year and every year: steady winds can fan the flames through the fast-burning dune grass, expanding explosively.

“We don’t have time to wait,” Ritter said. “By the time we get to the fire the fire has grown so much.”

Inside, firefighters are drinking coffee, making sandwiches, chatting with the bulldozer driver from Rognlin’s. The briefing goes a little after noon, the sounds of distant fireworks thumping through the walls, as all the firefighters and members of other organizations, such as Police Chief Neccie Logan, sit in on it as Ritter and Mandella go through the plan a final time.

Art adorns the vehicle bay at the Ocean Shores Fire Department on the 4th of July. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)

“Prevention starts now,” Ritter says during the brief. “We’ll prevent a nightmare later if we start now.”

The fire department can’t afford to sit and wait for the calls to come in, Ritter said. OSFD has adopted a forward-deployed posture, firefighters in surplussed and refitted Humvees, 6x6s, and a former Medium Tactical Vehicle — an Army cargo truck — patrolling the beach, knocking out issues before they can grow, and keeping fireworks away from the dunes.

“I think that’s one of the most effective things we’ve done,” Ritter said. “Getting those rigs out there early and keeping people 100 feet from the dunes.”

Other elements of the department are tasked with covering medical calls, or responding to structure fires in town. July Fourth would see 30 total calls, which doesn’t account for visitors who went to aid tents out on the beach or incidents that patrolling firefighters neutralized before a call even came in.

Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World Ocean Shores residents waves at passing firefighters on the Fourth of July.

Ritter voices concerns about the high tide, forecast for a bit after 10 p.m., squishing guests together. A long day of recreating on the beach, limited space, liberal alcohol consumption, and a gun show in town could all contribute to incidents, Ritter reiterates.

“Keep your head on a swivel,” Ritter repeats during the brief. “People, they’re just … they’re not thinking.”

A group photo on the ladder truck before getting down to business, the echoes of reports increasing in frequency. A series of smoke puffs like a cluster of grapes, drifting loosely in sight above the trees of the golf course behind the main station, marring the otherwise flawless blue.

Firefighters sort out a few last minute details before making their way to their assigned zones. I ride out to the beach with Ritter, cruising down the smooth sand of the beach from south to north, stopping to chat with some folks having a foot race in costumes, checking out the arrangements of barricades and aid tents.

Traffic backs up on the Chance a la Mer approach on the Fourth of July. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)

Already, the amount of vehicles on the beach is staggering. When I comment on this, I get amusement for my thoughts; it’s early yet, Ritter says. There are hundreds, thousands of cars on the beach. Flags, banners, grills, kites. Pedestrians everywhere too — playing games, kicking soccer balls in between cars, grilling, walking, running.

“The High Dune Trail was new this year. I don’t know if many people knew about it,” Ritter said. “Not everyone wants to be in the chaos. It gives people the opportunity to come watch the fireworks without being in immediate danger.”

A solid line of vehicles waits to approach at Chance a la Mer — waiting patiently for their turn to go down the single out-lane to the beach, as electric bikes weave down the line. That line is only going to get longer, Ritter says. Indeed, it’ll be nearly 10 hours until the line to get to the beach finally dissipates, after sunset.

Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World Ocean Shores Fire Chief Brian Ritter readies gear before stepping off on the Fourth of July.

Up in the hotel now, four stories up, looking down on the approach, the breeze is accompanied by the constant low-level crackle of fireworks, like a skirmish beyond eyesight, punctuated by larger booms of the tube mortars. It’s too cold for it to be the Fourth, I grumble.

Firefighters come and go from the hotel room, conferring with Ritter or Mandella, who themselves go out, checking on their arrangements. The line for the Chance approach stays constant. The noise of the fireworks isn’t going anywhere. Officers on the balcony idly strategize what they’d do if a fire threatened the hotel itself, a steady stream of technical jargon/gibberish — this size hose, that size hose, Y-gates, wetting down, vehicle and hydrant placement, wind direction.

The department chaplain joins the room, steadily monitoring the beach with a pair of binoculars. At one point, one of the beach crews responds to a fire call right up on the approach. Might have been stomped out, might not. A brush truck — one of the Humvees, flying an American flag — runs up the walk, firefighters jumping out to hunt down the source of the smoke. The firefighter report back — source located and extinguished. They recover to the brush truck and get back on with it.

Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World Ocean Shores firefighters pose for a photo on the Fourth of July.

The dune grasses are greener than usual, Ritter and others agree.

Down on the beach, a constellation of kites dips and flutters with the wind, the steady breeze down the coast.

At the station, firefighters sit ready outside the station in the sunshine, waiting for the calls to come in, as officers shuffle cars and golf carts around, playing a desultory game of corn hole as the sun sinks and the day wears on.

At 5 p.m. or so, the traffic is still bad, the weather is still clear, and the wind is still cold. Cars are still entering Chance a la Mer approach without cease since we got here. How many cars an hour is that?

How much square footage? How many people? It boggles the mind. Ritter and others cite a figure above 100,000. Before coming out here, I would have said that’s impossible. Seeing it now, I’m becoming a little convinced.

Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World Ocean Shores firefighters respond to a dune grass fire on the 4th of July.

A fog bank hits like a wave in the late afternoon, slamming over the beach, obscuring the view of the coast. There are sounds of sirens reaching through the haze. Bright sunlight, fluorescing it all.

And a little later, it’s gone, blown away by the same breeze carrying away the smoke from the fireworks detonating ceaselessly over the cars. Firefighters come and go, responding to medical calls — broken bones, dislocations, burns, fire injuries, uncontrolled vomiting.

On the beach, there’s as battered and bedamned a collection of cars as ever graced the Washington coast, driving with some abandon up and down the travel lanes. Engines revving in the distance, fireworks being lit a mere arm’s length from some of the cars, flags of all stripe from the ever-welcome Ice Spice over American flag to the puerile little FJB flags. There’s a handful of languages in earshot. I see kids lighting fireworks with cigarettes, which is somehow inspiring.

Ocean Shores firefighters respond to a medical call. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)

As 7 p.m. comes and goes, illegal burns and dumpster fires start popping up. The long day in the sun is starting to signify. Rotating officers watching through the binoculars from the balcony of the hotel.

“I can’t even tell you how many dumpster fires we went to,” Ritter said. “But at the end of the day, those dumpsters kept the fire contained.”

As 9 p.m. passes, the rate of fire from the beach is really starting to get rolling. Sun’s getting low against the hazy ocean. There’s a permanent layer of smoke from fireworks now clinging to the curves of the land amongst the dunes. That dune area is Ritter’s biggest concern: a fire there that gets its legs underneath it could threaten houses and homes extremely quickly.

“We need more wildland training. We have a lot of wildland interface with all the overgrown vegetation. That fire behaves real different than structure fire,” Ritter said. “We’re headed that way. By this time next year I’m hoping all my guys will be red-carded.”

People attempt to escape the beach on the Fourth of July. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)

The sun kisses the horizon, before it comes up and the darkness sets in, gloom and smoke thickening. The tempo of fireworks is so steady now that picking up individual detonations is impossible at this distance; it blends, a bucket of round river pebbles being churned.

The rate of calls is going up, too.

“The volume of calls increased sharply in the later hours of the night. We doubled up (two calls running concurrently) 14 times, tripled six times, quadrupled three times, and quintupled six times,” said Kara McDermott, firefighter and public information officer for OSFD. “We were toned out eight times for mutual aid in the county. The volume of calls we were running concurrently meant that we were unavailable to respond to five calls for mutual aid (GHFD 7). This included a mix of EMS and fire calls.”

The first dune fire of the evening strikes fast — a call for a fire by one of the approaches amid a flurry of other calls. Mandella moves out fast from the hotel to go to the scene. I ride alongside as he hits the lights and sirens to head south, moving crisply as other brush trucks and utility vehicles respond. We hit the beach, following the police lights and the glow of flames illuminating the crest of the dunes.

Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World Ocean Shores firefighters spray a dune grass fire on the Fourth of July.

“I went out and looked at it the next morning. They contained it to the primary dune area,” Ritter said. “Somebody said they saw someone down there shooting fireworks into the dunes. That’s all hearsay. Most likely, it was from fireworks.”

Firefighters working at the direction of Capt. Corey Kuhl rapidly knock down the widespread but easily extinguished grass fires, regrouping and divvying up tasks once or twice. When we rolled up, it was an unbroken wall of burning grass; in minutes, it’s smashed down into a few still-glowing areas, mostly driftwood among the grass that also caught. The 6×6 shines here, racing around the dunes. Ritter estimated the fire spread to about six or seven areas before firefighters eviscerated it.

I singe the cuffs of my trousers idly stomping embers while I follow Mandella around, tromping through the loose sand of the recently extinguished fire area. I resolve to bill the newspaper for replacements.

The sun has well and truly set by now, past 11 p.m. The beach still has dozens of vehicles — and dozens of fires — scattered in the darkness, but the bulk of visitors have fled, draining out of town like a tsunami receding to its origin, leaving only the debris of millions of fireworks and the detritus of holiday merriment.

OSFD isn’t done yet, though. Flare ups, dumpster fires, and other calls will go. The department gets another seven calls between midnight and 4 a.m. But for this Fourth of July, the peak has passed.

“I feel good about how things went this year,” Ritter said. “We made it to the calls. We put out the fires.”

The butcher’s bill for the holiday is pretty moderate; a jeep damaged by fireworks here, a visitor maimed by a detonation there, but no fingers lost or serious injuries, Ritter said. Despite being a moderate year, six people are still transported for advanced care.

“It hasn’t always been that way in the past,” Ritter said. “We’ve had some pretty horrific firework injuries.”

Just as their work starts months before the first visitor arrives on the morning of the Fourth, their work will end long after the sound of fireworks stops echoing and the smoke clears. When I leave, it takes about twice as long to get back to Aberdeen as it took me to get to Ocean Shores this morning; the fire department is still working hard.

OSFD isn’t the only organization that works to make the holiday a safe one for guests and residents; the Ocean Shores Police Department saw a staggering number of calls, and other city employees and community groups work long, busy hours to ensure a good experience.

“We’re going to have an after-action on the Fourth of July, probably in September — what went good, what went bad, what we can do as a group,” Ritter said. “My goal is to build a system with all the parties involved, with all the groups. That way as we go forward, it’ll be a systematic approach. Everyone will know what they’re doing.”

Next year will be more serious, Ritter said, with the Fourth falling on a Friday. OSFD will bring in firefighters from other departments to swell its ranks for the holiday. The cost to the department and the city is in the tens of thousands of dollars, Ritter said — the overtime, wear on vehicles, gear expenditures, decorations and signage, portable toilets, and a thousand other things that let people enjoy the holiday in safety and comfort.

“We always look forward to the Fourth of July holiday. We just want people when they come to our city to be safe,” Ritter said. “I always say, if they wouldn’t do it in their house, they shouldn’t do it in ours.”

Contact Senior Reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or michael.lockett@thedailyworld.com.

An Ocean Shores firefighter takes an opportunity between calls to relax on the Fourth of July. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)