One of the Portland Area’s Biggest Annual Fourth of July Events Has Been Canceled Due to COVID-19 Concerns

The Vancouver Fireworks Spectacular has long been billed as the “biggest west of the Mississippi.”

By Andi Prewitt

You already know you're going to spend the rest of April hunkered down at home. Perhaps you've even mentally prepared for a May without events.

Are you ready to miss the Fourth of July, too?

The holiday itself might not be endangered by the coronavirus, but one of its biggest local events has already been canceled. The Vancouver Fireworks Spectacular at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, long billed as the largest display west of the Mississippi, was called off this afternoon.

It joins another Portland-area Independence Day tradition, the Waterfront Blues Festival, which was nixed last month.

"Due to the current coronavirus pandemic," the show's producer, the Historic Trust, announced on its Twitter account, "we want to be responsible and ensure the safety and health of the community with canceling the event."

The Independence Day event, which takes place at the sprawling National Park Service grounds that used to function as a fur trading post just across the river from Portland, has attracted tens of thousands of spectators for 57 years.

Although the show was free to attend, vendors who'd planned on setting up booths will now be dealt what is likely another financial blow due to the outbreak.

Related: The Waterfront Blues Festival Has Been Canceled Due to the Pandemic.

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