During the U.S. Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary celebration at Camp Pendleton, an explosive ordnance incident occurred, affecting a California Highway Patrol (CHP) vehicle. According to an internal CHP report, metal shrapnel from the ordnance hit the vehicle on Saturday.

The event featured a military exercise with live artillery fire, resulting in the intermittent closure of a 17-mile section of the 5 Freeway for approximately four hours. This caused significant delays for motorists along the route.

The incident took place around 1:46 p.m. when an explosive device prematurely detonated above the freeway near White’s Beach, about three-quarters of a mile south of Las Pulgas Road. The explosion damaged a CHP patrol car, although a CHP motorcycle also struck by shrapnel remained unscathed.

CHP Border Division Chief Tony Coronado described the situation as both unusual and concerning. “It is highly uncommon for live-fire or explosive training to occur over an active freeway. As a Marine myself, I respect our military partners immensely, but my primary duty is to ensure the safety of California’s citizens and the officers who serve them,” Coronado stated.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported in the incident. Following the event, CHP alerted the Marine Corps, which promptly decided to halt any further ordnance firings over the freeway.

“The CHP has filed an internal report on the incident, with a recommendation to conduct an additional after-action review into the planning, communication and coordination between federal, state, and local government around the event on Saturday, October 18, to strengthen protocols for future demonstrations and training events near public roadways,” a CHP statement read.

In a post on X, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “We love our Marines and owe a debt of gratitude to Camp Pendleton, but next time, the Vice President and the White House shouldn’t be so reckless with people’s lives for their vanity projects.”

This comes after a back-and-forth disagreement between Newsom and the Marines via X on whether or not to shut down the 5 Freeway for the celebration.

The state was asked on Friday to put signage along the freeway that read “Overhead fire in progress,” according to a statement from Newsom’s office. Early Saturday morning, the federal government informed the state that the live fire activities were scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

While the Marines stated they would not need to shut down the freeway during live firing from Navy ships onto land, CHP elected to stop traffic out of caution that someone could get hurt or drivers could be distracted.

A spokesperson for Vice President JD Vance — who was in attendance at Camp Pendleton — declined to comment and deferred to the First Marine Expeditionary Force, which said they are committed to determining the incident’s root cause and applying findings to future missions.