LONG BEACH, Pacific County — Like the opening salvo of the First Gulf War. That’s how Long Beach Police chief Flint Wright describes the annual Independence Day scene that plays out on the beach in front of this Pacific County seaside town.
Tens of thousands of Northwesterners descend on the Long Beach Peninsula annually because the public can legally drive onto the beach and set off unlimited amounts of consumer fireworks. The massive crowds — with numbers skewing higher when July 4 falls on a long weekend, as it does this year — result in hundreds of vehicles clogging Long Beach’s main road access point to the sand, overwhelming traffic flaggers and forcing emergency services to use alternate routes while responding to dune grass fires and injuries from errant fireworks.
Even ardent fireworks proponents, like lifelong resident and local business owner Jeff Harrell, concede that the scene is “managed chaos.”
Then there’s the aftermath. In data collected from beach cleanups sponsored by nonprofit environmental organization Surfrider Foundation, last year’s Independence Day celebrations on Washington’s beaches generated nearly five times more garbage than those in California and Oregon combined.
“People have figured out that we’re a free-for-all,” said Wendy Murry, who helps organize an annual July 5 beach cleanup.
All of which has led some peninsula residents to declare enough is enough. Coming together in 2021 under the banner Better Beaches and Byways, fireworks foes have successfully pushed the city of Long Beach to prohibit fireworks from being sold or discharged in city limits, with the slogan “Ban the Boom.”
But a ban in Long Beach city limits won’t stamp out oceanfront fireworks. That change requires action by Washington State Parks, the state agency with jurisdiction over ocean beaches outside federal, tribal, local government or private land, including 62 miles of coastline south of the Quinault Indian Nation.
Four years into their quest, the effort to ban the boom has stalled like a stuck fuse as State Parks has yet to agree on a way forward — while also exposing tensions in a changing small town between newcomers and old-timers, visitors seeking relaxation in nature and those driven by patriotic tradition, and the allure of tourist dollars versus the cost of a massive beach party.
Prepping for the Fourth
Long Beach is no stranger to summer tourism, but for a city of about 2,000 people — and a wider peninsula community of 11,000 — the July 4 crowds can prove overwhelming for first responders and municipal services. In 2015, the beach saw its biggest-ever crowds when nearly 100,000 people flooded the peninsula and caught law enforcement on the back foot. Warm temperatures last year brought crowds in the tens of thousands, according to Wright, the Long Beach police chief, and an elevated number of police responses compared to recent years.
“It’s insane,” said Long Beach fire Chief Kyle Jewell, who has spent 20 years with the volunteer department and calls in every available firefighter for the busiest stretch of the year. Their Independence Day tradition consists of an early communal dinner at the fire station to gird themselves for an intense stretch of emergency response.
While the department now faces fewer calls for help inside Long Beach city limits since a 2023 ban that went into effect last year, it still patrols the stretch of sand adjacent to the town. Last year, firefighters answered a gruesome call just before midnight after fireworks exploded in a man’s grasp; his hand was later amputated, the Chinook Observer reported. Farther north, Pacific County Fire District No. 1 dealt with two dune fires, one of which spread one-quarter mile, as well as one structure fire and six dumpster fires, according to the news outlet. The latter typically occurs when revelers dispose of spent fireworks or coals that are not fully extinguished.
“A lot of times we’ll be chasing dumpster fires all night,” Jewell said.
Wright, who has worked for the city for the better part of four decades, aims to put 20 police officers on duty like he had last year. He also relies on assistance from Washington State Parks, Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Pacific County sheriff’s office when a long weekend of partying can end in unsafe driving on the beach and fights between dueling camps.
“Booze and fireworks are not a good mix,” he said.
Wright handed out three citations last year for negligent driving, saying he observed drivers spinning doughnuts on the beach and other reckless behavior, even in front of law enforcement vehicles with their lights flashing.
Neither Pacific County nor neighboring Grays Harbor County, where fireworks are particularly popular in Ocean Shores, has reported any houses burning down on account of fireworks, though each county has witnessed an incident where shingles or siding caught on fire. As summers get hotter and drier, even on the notoriously wet Washington coast, the risk of fireworks sparking a blaze in town could increase.
“We haven’t (lost a building) yet, but it’s always a possibility,” said Jewell.
Join the garbage gang
Lifelong peninsula residents acknowledge that beach fireworks have been a July 4 tradition for decades, but not at the size and scale of today’s bacchanal. Washington fireworks vendors attest that today’s consumer pyrotechnics are more powerful — but also safer and less prone to malfunction — than a generation ago. While Washington state law prohibits the sale of “missile-type rockets,” tribal vendors not subject to state law sell these more explosive products. Cases of them are then carted down to ocean beaches, while their remains don’t always get carted off.
City, county and state officials station dumpsters at the most popular beach-approach roads so visitors can pack in, pack out. On the Long Beach Peninsula, volunteers handed out more than 3,000 garbage bags at seven beach approaches on July 4 last year. But the end result after the crowds leave is still measured by the ton.
“It’s devastating,” says Wendy Murry, board vice president of the beach cleanup group GrassRoots Garbage Gang. “The tide line is thick with party garbage and spent fireworks shells.”
For the past five years, Sue Svendsen was typically first on the scene, using her front loader to scoop the remains of beach party encampments. This year, the recently elected Long Beach mayor has assigned a city vehicle to the job.
Last year, 611 other volunteers fanned out across the Long Beach Peninsula and picked up 19.22 tons. That haul is still short of the record 37 tons set on Long Beach a decade ago, and about 10 tons less than cleanups collected in Ocean Shores last year, according to data collected by Washington CoastSavers.
Washington State Parks reported that last year the total July 5 garbage collection across all state beaches equaled the weight of nine adult orcas. This year, a nighttime high tide from July 4 to the next morning poses the risk of sucking more beach garbage out to sea than usual.
Fireworks contain plastics and heavy metals like lead, cadmium, aluminum and copper, all of which are potentially toxic if ingested by wildlife, from offshore aquatic animals to the oysters and razor clams in the tidelands. For the marine environment, said Liz Schotman, Surfrider Foundation Washington regional manager, “there’s just no good aspect” to fireworks.
Tradition of freedom — and tourism revenue
For some Long Beach businesses, July 4 is the tourism industry’s equivalent of Black Friday. Jeff Harrell co-owns Funland arcade and laser tag, Dylan’s Cottage Bakery, Sandbar restaurant and food court, and Long Beach Candy Company. He estimates that he takes in 5% of his annual revenue in just the three to four days around the Fourth, sufficient to cover rent for at least half the year.
“The revenues are astronomical for local businesses,” he said. “That economic impact is one of the largest three- to four-day weekends on our peninsula for the entire year.”
Born and raised in Long Beach, Harrell attests that the Fourth is his favorite holiday precisely because of the spectacle of pyrotechnics as far as the eye can see down the beach.
“I love the freedom to launch your fireworks,” he said. “It’s a big celebration that gives people the right to blow off some steam.”
Harrell helps sponsor a garbage bag handout and stands by the peninsula’s ability to manage such large crowds.
“Under the circumstances, we do a damn good job of pre- and postcleaning,” he said.
Then there are the fireworks vendors like Jack Marsh. His three stands in unincorporated Pacific County will open for business promptly at noon Tuesday. Marsh rakes in at least $100,000 over the frenzied three days as families stock up year after year, spending anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. “People who like fireworks really like them,” he said. “We’re on our third generation of customers.”
Fireworks proponents say calls to ban the boom don’t respect these long-held local traditions. “The majority of (those favoring a ban) are transplants,” said Harrell. “They see their slice of heaven at the beach, and now they don’t want fireworks.”
But the tourism profile in Long Beach is changing. Newer hospitality ventures like Adrift Hotel, with its in-house distillery and spa, and Campfield Long Beach, by Japanese outdoors brand Snow Peak, market themselves as quiet getaways and nature escapes. The Pacific County Tourism Bureau has branded its patch as the Evergreen Coast, with downtown Seattle billboards emphasizing misty beach strolls, forested trail runs and wildlife encounters. Fireworks are nowhere to be seen, although the bureau does not take a position on the issue.
“We want our beaches to be pristine. We want the experience to be the same on July 5 as on July 1,” said Josh Phillips, the bureau’s executive director. “Anything that detracts from that experience doesn’t fit our goals.”
Anatomy of a ban
Washington’s laissez-faire approach to July 4 fireworks on the beach is a rarity nationwide. Its closest analogue is Crystal Beach, Texas, which offers the same combination of vehicle access and a pyrotechnic carte blanche close to population centers that results in a near continuous string of personal fireworks shows.
On the West Coast, the Evergreen State is an outlier. Oregon State Parks prohibits personal fireworks on its state beaches, and some coastal towns skip professional pyrotechnics altogether. Lincoln City, Ore., will host a July 4 drone show this year, citing environmental motivations for ditching fireworks. Sponsors of San Diego’s Big Bay Boom and Long Beach, California’s Big Bang on the Bay, meanwhile, are under pressure from the California Coastal Commission to curtail or outright cancel the events.
The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission — the decision-making body that sets policies and rules for the parks agency — could ban personal fireworks on the stretch of beach in its jurisdiction, according to Jon Crimmins, operations director for the agency. Fireworks are already banned on ocean beaches fronting state parks, but that still leaves large swaths in front of towns like Long Beach and Ocean Shores.
State Parks is reluctant to ban fireworks in part because of the patchwork of rules in the cities and counties that border the beach. Some allow fireworks and others don’t — a situation exacerbated by unclear administrative boundaries. Determining where cities and counties end and state parks jurisdiction begins is tricky due to private property lines and shifting average high tides as the beach naturally widens or narrows over time.
“Just knowing where our jurisdiction is in real time on the ground in the dark is very difficult,” said Crimmins, who observed July 4 in Long Beach two years ago with State Parks Director Diana Dupuis. “We were pretty surprised with how many people are there, and there’s an impact on the beach with trash after an event like that.”
Crimmins believes a blanket ban on beach fireworks is unenforceable given the scale of the crowds and the relative paucity of law enforcement — State Parks counts on just a dozen rangers to patrol a coastline filled with tens of thousands of people. Although a collaborative effort between State Parks and local police clamped down on illegal beach camping over the Fourth, Crimmins doesn’t believe the much larger fireworks scene will be so easily remedied.
Better Beaches and Byways representatives made their case before the commission in 2023.
“There was a keen interest by the commissioners to (figure out) what they needed to do to ban fireworks,” said Better Beaches steering committee member Kathleen Davis. “We were told that the commissioners are ready to act.”
A Washington State Parks spokesperson confirmed the commission discussed beach fireworks in 2023 but that no new regulatory actions have been taken.
“The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission is very concerned about the issue of fireworks on the ocean beaches. Fireworks cause detrimental impacts to wildlife and the environment, as well as challenges and safety issues for local communities, park staff and park visitors,” Laurie Connelly, commission chair, said in a statement. “Although State Parks is not able to address fireworks on beaches alone, we take our role as a key partner in the effort seriously. It is a complex issue with many interests and parties, which we are taking into account as we weigh options.”
One hiccup is that local governments are not in lockstep. Grays Harbor County permits fireworks in unincorporated areas. Better Beaches and Byways campaigned for a ban on the Long Beach Peninsula in an advisory vote that passed by simple majority — but below Pacific County’s threshold to adopt the legislation. In the meantime, Long Beach took the plunge two years ago with its ban inside city limits, while Ocean Shores and Westport already have similar ones on the books.
“I’m a freedom kind of guy, but you’ve got to be responsible,” said Long Beach police Chief Wright, who will attempt to enforce a 100-foot buffer between beach fireworks and the dunes for the first time this year. “And if you’re not responsible, then unfortunately, restrictions get put in place. That’s where we’re at now with the beach.”
With a busy Independence Day expected this week and the country’s 250th birthday on the horizon next year, the Fourth will continue to see the skies light up over the Pacific — to the delight of visitors and the chagrin of some locals — but this both beloved and reviled Washington coast tradition may soon see its last hurrah.
