VIDEO: Peoriaโs Fourth of July celebrations were anything but quiet this year, as emergency crews across the city responded to more than 200 calls throughout the day and night. According to Fire Chief Shawn Sollberger, the department saw a major uptick in emergency calls compared to previous years, with crews from EMS, police and fire all responding to a high volume of incidents.
Among the most serious events was a bush fire that quickly escalated, spreading to two apartment units on North Braves Court. In total, emergency crews handled three structure fires, thirteen dumpster fires, three vehicle fires and made two arrests. One particularly alarming incident involved a man who lit a firework inside his vehicle. After accidentally dropping it, he attempted to pick it upโonly for it to explode in his hand, resulting in a traumatic injury.
Sollberger noted that the surge in calls stretched emergency response teams thin, forcing the department to make difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources. โNormally, if we get anything labeled as โon fire,โ we send the appropriate amount of firefighters to that incident,โ he said. โBut we couldnโt do that on the Fourth because we only have 16 resources. When I say โonly,โ I mean itโs a fair amountโwe have 49 firefighters on duty every dayโbut when multiple calls come in at once, we simply canโt send full crews to each one.โ Sollberger added that the department is already reviewing this yearโs response and making plans to improve resource coordination for next yearโs Independence Day celebrations.
