Tag Archives: july 4th

Announcements, News

YouTube Lets You Ride Along with SFD’s Ladder 10

We wanted to leave you with something topical for the July 4th holiday, and stumbled across this video ride-along of the Ladder 10 firetruck responding to a call. Perfect! Someone’s bound to set something on fire for the Fourth. There are tons of public firework displays, but more than a few people like their gunpowder to singe a little, despite the fact that they’re illegal in Seattle.

“[I]f you’re caught with fireworks you could spend up to 1 year in jail, or have to pay up to a $5,000 fine,” reports KIRO 7, adding that police strongly advise you not to call 911 when the inevitable M80 goes off. Call (206) 625-5011 instead, they request.

Ladder 10, so you know, is part of the Seattle Fire Department’s Battalion 2, and lives at 1300 East Pine Street, on Capitol Hill. It gets called off before it reaches the scene, so it’s a bit anticlimactic.

We don’t know what this videographer’s precise reason was for the trip–other than the obvious “that’s just what we do“–but we do know you have to be a) at least 18 years old, and b) have a “business reason” to go on a ride-along. A 20-minute fire house tour, on the other hand, sounds a lot easier to set up. One major caveat is that the fire department personnel may run away from you if they get called to a fire, and you may feel foolish for a moment, just standing there.

Also: “Birthday party groups meeting the age requirement are welcome to tour a fire station but may not hold party festivities at the station. No cake and ice cream, please.”

News, Weather

July 4th is Transition Day!

Climate Prediction Center’s 6-10 day outlook

Okay, July Fourth is also Independence Day, on which we make the British look sheepish about their imperialist history and then blow our fingers off with fireworks. But for Northwesterners, as Cliff Mass reminds us, July Fourth is also the day that summer begins. (Right, sometimes it’s July Fifth.)

This year, says Mass, we can expect the Fourth to be “the transition day, but one that should be dry–particularly around fireworks time”–so be ready to fire up the grill. The big local event is the Family 4th at Lake Union, presented by Starbucks. Though the fireworks have to wait for dark, there’s fun planned for the whole day, beginning at 10 a.m. in Lake Union Park and noon at Gas Works:

One Reel, the non-profit producer of the Family 4th, has collaborated with The Center for Wooden Boats and future South Lake Union resident Museum Of History & Industry (MOHAI) to link their event with another favorite summer tradition, the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival.

With the Fourth behind us, “we transition to meteorological nirvana, as the persistent trough over the NW moves offshore and ridging develops over western North America,” adds Mass, in what certainly looks like English.

It’s that trough that brings in cool, cloudy air from the Pacific, so with it gone, things brighten up appreciably. The Climate Prediction Center provides the map above, in which oranges and reds indicate the probability of above-average temperatures. For most of the year, the Northwest has been on the bluer end of that scale, but finally we will have a chance to swelter a little, and make sotto voce disparagements of people who wear flip flops at inappropriate venues. Enjoy.