BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The Kern County Fire Department has released their call and incident statistics for the Independence Day holiday, saying this year saw a "significant increase" in emergency activity over last year.
According to KCFD, the Kern County Emergency Communications Center received 1,267 calls for 9-1-1 on July 4, 2023, with the peak hour for calls coming in between 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm. During that peak hour, the ECC received as many calls in one hour as they usually do for an entire day.
KCFD says that between the mornings of July 4 and July 5, firefighters were dispatched to 196 fires, most of which, 96, were classified as "outside fires," and 57 vegetation fires. For the same time last year, there were 53 outside fires and only 8 vegetation fires. In addition, KCFD responded to 26 structure fires this year.
KCFD also operates an online portal for Kern County residents to report the use, storage, or sale of illegal fireworks, and between June 1 and July 5, they've received nearly 6,000 reports.
Altogether, KCFD reports responding to over a hundred more incidents than July 4th of last year. Last year, KCFD personnel were dispatched to a total of 261 emergency incidents. This year, that number was 396.
Ultimately, KCFD says they consider yesterday "successful," crediting the efficiency of and teamwork between the county's Emergency Communications Center and KCFD firefighters in getting to and putting out fires before they could grow and spread.
