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NEWS - UPDATES - ARTICLES Fireworks blaze in Mexico kills 37
January 1, 2003
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY, Mexico - The death toll from a New Year's Eve fireworks explosion in the Mexican port city of Veracruz rose to 37 on Wednesday as firefighters searched smoldering buildings, authorities said. Illegal fireworks stands ignitied on Tuesday night as revelers thronged a marketplace to buy New Year's supplies. The blaze engulfed an entire city block.
Officials said the number of dead could rise further beause some buildings were still too hot to enter.
"In a recent count we found 37 bodies," a spokesman for the Veracruz civil protection agency told Reuters. Dozens more were injured, many from smoke inhalation.
Fireworks accidents in factories, warehouses and stores are common in Mexico. Pyrotechnics are popular, especially on major holidays and at religious festivals. In September 1999, more than 60 people died in an explosion at a gunpowder and fireworks warehouse in Celaya in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.
While Mexico has laws controlling the manufacture and sale of fireworks, enforcement is often lax. Veracruz Mayor Jose Ramon Gutierrez told Televisa television network that city officials just last week asked the local prosecutor's office to shut down street stalls that posed an explosion risk, but no action had been taken.
"This is not the first time this has happened in Mexico or in Veracruz....We are responsible. Let this serve as an example," Gutierrez said.
City fire spokesman Carlos Ortiz said it was unclear how the blaze started, although there were reports that a passer-by threw a cigarette at a stand. City officials tried to shut down the fireworks stands Dec. 24, but stood down after stand owners beat them back with sticks and rocks, Ortiz said.
Deadly explosion in southern Philippines
December 31, 2002
Reuters News Agency
COTABATO, Philippines - A grenade killed at least six people and injured more than 30 in the insurgency-plagued southern Philippines on Tuesday, officials said.
An unidentified man hurled a grenade at vendors selling firecrackers near Tacurong city in the southwestern part of Mindanao island, a region where Muslim guerrillas are active.
"A lone witness say a small, long-haired man pull the grenade out of his pocket and throw it on to the ground. There was a stampede," army brigade commander Colonel Agustin Dimaala said. The street market was bustling with last minute shoppers buying firecrackers for New Year's celebrations, witnesses said. The grenade blast triggered secondary explosions when firecrackers caught fire.
"There is blood splattered all over the street. Slippers and hats are thrown around. There is a small crater on the street," Dimaala said, adding that the death toll may rise.
Security forces across the Philippines are on high alert ahead of the new year for attacks by Muslim rebels as well as leftist guerrillas, who have refused to follow the government in declaring a ceasefire during the Christmas/New year holidays. Police are also on alert for casualties from New Year celebrations. Each year, some people are killed and dozens injured by celebratory gunfire and fireworks.
Indian fireworks blast kills 17
September 17, 2002
CNN.com
ATTUR, India - At least 17 people have died after a van loaded with fireworks exploded in the southern Indian city of Attur, police and city officials say.
Another 22 people were injured in the explosion and two buildings were leveled by the powerful blast. The explosion occurred shortly before midnight local time Monday night as the fireworks were being loaded from a warehouse into the van.
Investigators believe a gas cylinder in the van may have exploded when the fireworks went off, adding to the destruction. The explosion destroyed the van, the warehouse and a nearby building.
Seventeen bodies -- seven men, five women and five children -- have been removed from the rubble.
The southern state of Tamil Nadu, where the blast occurred, is home to dozens of small-scale fireworks factories, many of which operate without even the most minimal safety features. Many of them are working around the clock to produce fireworks for the upcoming Diwali festival at the beginning of November.
Lima inferno December 21, 2001
Associated Press
LIMA, Peru - Firefighters digging through the rubble of a huge blaze sparked by a fireworks explosion in historic downtown Lima had retrieved 276 bodies by last night.
Officials were trying to find out what sparked Saturday night's disaster, which left little hope of finding more survivors in damaged buildings where temperatures during the fire exceeded 590 degrees C.
Witnesses said that a shop owner had lit a firecracker in front of a crowd of shoppers to advertise his wares. It exploded and set light to large stocks of other fireworks, which flew in all directions through the packed shopping centre. Within seconds the building and several cars parked outside were burning fiercely. The flames quickly spread to two blocks of flats.
"All of a sudden rockets were exploding," said one survivor, 31-year-old Jose Fernandez Vega. "People began to run and I could not get out with everyone pushing. The way out was blocked by taxis and people in the streets," he said in Arzobispo Loayza hospital, where he was being treated for burns to his arms, face and ears.
"People were trapped in cars and the shopping galleries. Old people, women, children," he said. "I thought I was going to die. Everything was dark." One firefighter rushed from a burning building with a baby in his hands as people stumbled out into the smoky street, where flames had gutted parked cars. At one point, a dozen people trapped behind security bars on the second floor of a building pushed their arms through broken windows and screamed to be rescued. Firefighters pulled 30 people from the building before it was gutted by fire.
Victims included small children, killed in the streets as a wall of fire swept through four blocks of shops and rundown apartment buildings. About 30 percent of the bodies recovered were children, officials said. At least 144 people are in hospitals with burns. Authorities were still searching 60 percent of the burned structures, including at least six multi-storey shopping complexes honeycombed with tiny stores.
Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi said the Lima morgue was at capacity and that authorities were co-ordinating with the morgue in Lima's northern port of Callao and military installations to deal with the overflow.
Almost 100 victims were laid out for families to identify them. Many were unable to recognize the charred bodies and investigators may have to turn to dental records to identify many of the dead. President Alejandro Toledo cut short a trip to the north of Peru to return to the capital. He declared yesterday and today national days of mourning and announced an immediate ban on the production and importation of fireworks.
Fireworks are popular in Peru during Christmas and New Year celebrations and are sold on streets through the capital during the season.
"We are going to implement drastic measures against those who make them legally, illegally or import them," Toledo said, standing atop a fire truck after reviewing the wreckage left by the blaze. "This is one of the most tragic moments I had had to live through as a person and obviously as a president," he said, adding that Israel had pledged to send a burn-treatment team to help the overburdened hospitals around the capital.
Bodies charred beyond recognition were scattered in the streets and in buildings. Police carried badly burned victims stripped to their underwear in makeshift stretchers made of plastic sheeting.
Vincente Pineda, a Civil Defence official, said rescue workers had found 122 bodies of people killed just in the streets.
Rospigliosi said the victims included shopkeepers who had shut themselves in their stores to deter looters. Efforts to fight the blaze were hindered at first by low water pressure and by crowds on onlookers who initially blocked fire trucks from the scene.
The fire chief said 440 firefighters were called in from several districts to fight the blaze, about four blocks from Peru's Congress in the historic downtown section of Lima. Twenty municipal water trucks were sent to the scene to support the firefighters. Streets in the area were ankle deep with water and long flumes of smoke rose into the night sky.
Four die in Italian fireworks factory blast November 23, 2001
CNN.com
ROME, Italy - An explosion Friday at a central Italian fireworks factory killed at least four people and injured another, officials said.
The explosion at Ciandri Pirotecnica occured at 6:20 pm local time in Morrona, a section of the town of Terricciola located 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside Pisa in the Tuscany district.
"Rescue workers are battling a big fire and have recovered the bodies of four people," a firefighter told Reuters. "Another person suffered burns from the explosion."
The firefighter said he did not know how many people were inside the factory, which was operating when the blast occured, according to the Italian news agency AGI. The cause of the explosion is under investigation, the Associated Press reported.
At least 10 people have died in accidents at Italian fireworks factories over the ast four years, according to media reports.
Fireworks explosion kills eight young men in Brazil August 19, 2001
Associated Press
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Fireworks exploded in a house north of Sao Paulo, sparking a fire that killed eight men, reports said Sunday.
The men, who ranged in age from 18 to 22, died of smoke inhalation late Saturday following the fire in a Vila Carolina home, reports said. They were trapped in a back room that lacked ventilation.
The owner of the house, Paulo Henrique da Silva,41,and his fiancee escaped. Da Silva was arrested Sunday on charges of illegal possession of explosives and involuntary manslaughter.
Reports said the men had planned to attach the fireworks to a large balloon and launch it Sunday, an illegal but popular activity in the suburbs of Sao Paulo. Firefighters said a cigarette probably sparked the explosion.
Five killed in Portugal blast August 10, 2001
CNN.com
MADRID, Spain - An explosion at a fireworks factory has killed five people and injured one in the northern Portuguese city of Guimaraes, authorities said.
The blast occurred shortly after noon on Friday in an outlying district of Guimaraes known as Caldas das Taipas, where the factory was located in a remote field. The explosion destroyed the factory but did not affect any other buildings, the state news agency Lusa told CNN.
A Public Security Police office in Lisbon confirmed the number of casualties. The seriously injured person was taken to hospital in Guimaraes, a city of 150,000 people located some 50 km (30 miles) north of Oporto, Portugal's second-largest city.
BLASTS COMMON
Firefighters backed by two helicopters and 14 vehicles battled a blaze around the factory, which has spread to forested land.
No immediate cause was given for the explosion, and the factory's name was not available. Lusa reported that authorities were trying to determine how many workers were in the factory at the time of the blast.
Such explosions are common in Portugal, especially in the north, where there are many small factories making fireworks. The blasts often occur in summer, when plants produce fireworks for parties and festivals.
Antonio Rodrigues, president of the Portuguese Fireworks Industry Association, said the sector needed to improve security measures. "We have no support of any kind from local governments or the police for training," he told Reuters.
Light display ends in chaos July 22, 2001
Associated Press
TOKYO - Thousands of revellers leaving a fireworks display surged onto a crowded pedestrian bridge in western Japan yesterday night, creating a crush of bodies that left atleast 10 people dead, most of them children, and about 90 injured.
People were packed on the overpass outside the railway station in Akashi, a city about 650 kilometres southwest of Tokyo, said Masafumi Oshita, a police spokesman in Hyogo Prefecture.
The crowd was so thick that people couldn't stay on their feet. The 110-metre footbridge is the only route to the station from the beach where the crowd watched the fireworks display, national broadcaster NHK said. The show drew 130,000 people, city official Yasuhiro Tanaka said.
YELLING STARTED
"As soon as the fireworks ended, many people started pushing, and people started getting angry and yelling at each other," a youth in a t-shirt told NHK.
"The woman next to me fell, and I landed on top of her. She was having trouble breathing."
"I was so scared," the youth said, "I thought I was going to die."
A man told NHK that he couldn't keep both feet on the ground because the crowd was so thick. "I was almost falling too because I had to stand on one leg," he said.
A woman in a red cotton kimono said the bridge got more packed as the fireworks display neared its end. "I had trouble breathing," she said. "There were so many people."
BOY,2,KILLED
Atleast eight of the dead were children under 10, the youngest a 2-year-old boy, police said. TV broadcasts showed a crowd at the scene, including youths in shorts and young women in cotton kimonos, while the red lights of emergency vehicles flashed in the darkness. Women fanned themselves in the sultry night air.
Agents cordoned off the overpass as investigators examined the stairway leading up from the street for evidence. A metal panel on the overpass hung askew. The accident came at a high point in the Japanese summer festival season, when thousands throng shrines for raucous celebrations or gather under night skies for elaborate fireworks displays.
"I'm so sorry that many precious lives were lost at a festival which was supposed to be a fun event," Akashi Mayor Nobuhiro Okada said. "This never should have happend, and I am so sorry."
One dies when fireworks plant explodes July 19, 2001
CNN.com
CHESTER, South Carolina - One person died and another was injured Thursday in an explosion and fire at a fireworks plant here.
The explosion leveled one building at Melrose Pyrotechnics, leaving nothing but shards of metal and concrete, a Chester Fire Department dispatcher said.
Fireworks set off by the explosion ignited another building and trees and grass around the complex, the dispatcher said. Chester Fire Department spokesman Jamie Leonard said the fire began around 2:30pm.
A spokeswoman at Piedmont Hospital in Rock Hill said Brent Ringer,24, was dead on arrival. The other person hurt was in good condition with minor injuries at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Witnesses told a local television station the explosion sent up an assortment of fireworks high into the air in a display resembling a Fourth of July show. The company manufactured Class "A" pyrotechnics for large fireworks shows across the United States.
Chester is in northern South Carolina about 70 miles southeast of Spartanburg.
Grants for fireworks, laugh fest May 2, 2001
The Gazette (Montreal)- Alan Hustak
Cigarette sponsorship is out; liquor is in. The city's annual fireworks festival has been given $1.5 million each year for the next three years from the Societe des Alcools du Quebec.
The money compensates the Montreal International Pyromusical Competition for the loss of sponsor Benson and Hedges, which had funded the festival since its inception in 1985.
The tabacco company was forced to pull out as a sponsor to comply with amendments last year to the federal tobacco act, which prohibit brand-name promotion of such events.
The festival takes place at La Ronde amusement park, which the city of Montreal sold in April.
The new owner is Six Flags, the world's second largest theme-park operator, which agreed to host the fireworks festival at La Ronde for 10 years - with or without sponsorship.
The festival kicks off Wednesday, June 20. Countries represented this year at the competition will be: Germany(June 27), Portugal(June 30), Taiwan(July 7), Spain(July 11), U.S.A.(July 14), Canada(July 18), France(July 21), and Australia(July 28).
The closing program on July 28 will be a tribute to Giovanni Panzera, long-time Benson and Hedges festival artistic director, who died in September.
The competition is watched by an estimated 2.3 million people each year, making it the most popular of Montreal's plethora of festivals.
The fate of the funding of another major Montreal festival was also resolved yesterday. Tourisme Quebec announced it will give the Just for Laughs comedy festival $2.5 million this year. The money will compensate the festival for the loss of Craven A's sponsorship. 'Student fireworks factory' caused China school blast March 7, 2001
Associated Press
BEIJING, China - An accident is a school fireworks factory is being blamed for the deaths of more than 40 students in the village of Fanlin in China's southeastern Jiangxi province.
A resident in the village of Fanlin has told CNN that the blast, which occured tuesday around midday local time, was caused by an illegal fireworks factory located inside the school.
He estimated that between 50 to 60 people may have died in the explosion which flattened a large part of the two-storey school building. Rescue workers sifted through the rubble of the destroyed school buildings all day Wednesday and the villager said he suspected more bodies remained to be uncovered.
The AFP news agency cited sources who said children as young as eight were putting fuses into firecrackers when the explosion occured.
Reports said the site was littered with paper used to wrap firecrackers, although village officials have denied the the school was being used to make fireworks. However, one unnamed government spokesman was quoted as saying that an explosion of stored fireworks was the most likely cause for the blast;
"Most probably it is because of firecrackers, but a final result will come out after investigators convene" Reuters quoted the official as saying. "I don't know right now how they could cause this explosion," he said.
According to China's state run Xinhua news agency, most of the dead are primary school students. At least 40 others were injured in the blast. Five children are reported to be in hospital in nearby Yichun city in a critical condition suffering from burns.
CASH STRAPPED SCHOOLS
Xinhua did not report any link to fireworks, but CNN has learned that students had been producing fireworks inside the school for the past 3 years and that parents had complained several times to local officials. It is fairly common for cash strapped schools in poorer areas of China to generate extra income by creating a business on school premises. In other poor areas of China there have been reports of schools using children to assemble toys, collect palm nuts or cultivate vegetables to help boost school funds. Some have even been known to work in mines and other labor-intensive activities.
China has suffered a string of explosions and collapses of public buildings, including schools. The disasters are often caused by shoddy construction and poor safety standards, particularly in the fireworks industry, which included both large-scale plants and small, unlicensed workshops run by farmers as a source of extra cash.
Last July a blast in the southern province of Guandong killed as many as 75 people.
Fireworks are a key industry in Wan Zai and nearby counties, and a government map of the region uses a picture of exploding fireworks to symbolize the local specialty.
According to state media, the governor of Jiangxi Province, Shu Shengyou, has rushed back to the scene from Beijing where he was attending the National Peoples' Congress.
Child labour behind fatal explosion March 8, 2001
Washington Post
BEIJING - Students were being forced to make firecrackers during their lunch break for teachers seeking extra cash in a rural elementary school that was ripped apart by an explosion that killed at least 37 children and four teachers, witnesses and news reports said yesterday.
The catastrophe, in which at least 27 other people were injured, struck at 11:10 a.m. Tuesday at the Fanglin Village elementary school, 775 kilometres southwest of Shanghai in Jiangxi province, as the third-graders inserted fuses and detonators into large firecrackers, according to parents and local officials quoted in the state-run press.
Parents reached by telephone said teachers seeking to supplement their meagre state salaries forced the children to work without pay and set production quotas that had to be met before they could go home. They said local officials had ignored complaints lodged before the blast.
Witnesses described a horrendous scene of crushed and crying children buried in rubble, stricken blood-soaked parents pulling desperately at their loved ones, and government officials who appeared dismissive of the tragedy. State-run television showed footage of the two-storey schoolhouse; one side had been leveled, exposing neat rows of desks. Four classrooms were destroyed.
"I heard an enormous explosion and the whole sky lit up," said farmer Ding Mingxing, 39, whose youngest boy, 9-year-old Meng, was killed in the blast. "I ran over and the whole school was gone, crushed, nothing."
"There were the little ones, crushed and screaming. There were the little ones who didn't make any noise," Ding said. "We got some metal rods and started prying people out from under rocks. The children on the top were the best ones off. But once we got to the children below, they were all dead."
UNICEF expressed "outrage." In a statement, it charged that the deaths in Fanglin, a poor hamlet in the mountains of western Jiangxi, underscored the twin afflictions of child labour and underfunded schools in China.
Chinese kids forced to make fireworks March 9, 2001
Associated Press
BEIJING - It should have been just their classroom. Instead, it became their grave.
Children who died when their school exploded in southeast China were forced to make fireworks in class, their parents said yesterday. The father of an 11-year-old victim said he was among the first to arrive at the scene and saw dead children in the rubble still clutching fuses in their hands.
State media said 42 people were killed and 27 injured. Parents gave figures of between 53 and more than 60 - four of them teachers, the rest children. Many bodies were dismembered. Parts of one boy were found in a nearby river, said the father of a 9-year-old who died.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji blamed a man with mental problems for Tuesday's explosion, which reduced the school in Fang Lin village, Jiangxi province, to a pile of bricks, books and furniture. The official Xinhua News Agency identified his as 33-year-old Li Chuicai, a fireworks maker, and said he was known in the village as "psycho."
It said police found a notebook and papers in his home containing the confused phrase: "I'll sacrifice myself with 100 pounds of silver saltpetre, blast all, burn all, killing dozens of them at the very least."
But parents said government officials were lying. Zhang Chenggen said his 11-year-old son, who died, and other third and fourth-graders had since 1998 been forced to assemble firecrackers in class, normally working half-days. Profits subsidized school expenses and went to school officials, Zhang said.
The father of another 11-year-old victim said children were rushing to complete orders for China's traditional grave-sweeping festival on April 5, when families honour deceased relatives.
FIRECRACKER PLANT EXPLODES, KILLING THREE WORKERS
February 28, 2001
National Post
COLOMBO - At least three workers were killed and another four critically wounded when their firecracker manufacturing plant caught fire and exploded in northwestern Sri Lanka yesterday, police said. The privately owned fireworks factory in Negombo, 40 kilometres north of the capital, Colombo, was devastated after the explosion, police said.
THE CHINESE CONNECTION The recent approval of a small line of Chinese made fireworks for distribution in Canada appears to have raised quite a stink within the Canadian Consumer Fireworks industry. While the majority of consumers are excited about the new items offered by Vulcan Fireworks International, several prominent Canadian manufacturers and distributors have been much less receptive to the idea. Among their main concerns are whether the approval of these Chinese items signals the beginning of a downward spiral for the industry, with cheap imported fireworks eventually flooding the market and subsequently forcing Canadian manufacturers out of business. Another issue that has been raised is whether or not these foreign products will result in the lowering of Canadian quality and safety standars for consumer fireworks.
Canada currently has one of the best safety records in the world when it comes to fireworks, and as a result of strict regulations governing the quality, reliability, and safety of consumer fireworks, Canada maintains one of the lowest firework-related accident rates.
These quality control standards have been in existence for many years, and thus were the same standards used to test and regulate the new Vulcan Fireworks items. These regulations are universal and are used to evaluate all fireworks that are sold in Canada, regardless if they are manufactured locally or abroad. Therefore, a Chinese made item that is granted approval by the Explosives Regulatory Division of Natural Resources Canada for use in Canada is subject to meet the same standards as an item produced within this country. The quality and safety of the item remains the same, the only thing that changes is the country of origin.
I believe much of the fuss surrounding the new Chinese fireworks is the result of Canadian manufacturers and importers/distributors facing the possibility of new competition. Simply put, the new items are of comparable quality, yet are less expensive than many similar items already on the market, and therefore their introduction will no doubt cut into the profits of local manufacturers. Does this mean that Canadian Consumer Firework producers are destined for bankruptcy ? No. It simply means that the market is expanding and that they will have to adjust accordingly. While it is true that the introduction of massive amounts of Chinese produced fireworks into the United States market resulted in a drastic decline in the number of US manufacturers, one must take into consideration that the United States has a much larger fireworks market, as well as different (and often lower) set of quality and safety standards than does Canada. This is a unique market with different regulations and one cannot effectively compare the two.
The point is, there is little need to panic over the introduction of these new fireworks. No one got up in arms when BEM started importing Po Sing Fireworks from China several years ago. The market did not crumble then, and nor will it now. In fact, as firework consumers and enthusiasts, we should welcome the arrival of new and somewhat unique items into the Canadian market. It simply means more variety and most importantly, more fun.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
By B.Burnt
Being a pyro is an expensive hobby. Good fireworks don't come cheap, and no self-respecting enthusiast wants bad fireworks. Truth is, a little "fire in the sky" can easily set you back a week's pay, and putting on a nice public display might require a second mortgage on the house. This is the reality of playing with fire, and with the way the Canadian fireworks market is these days, many people stand to get burnt.
It appears as though the vast majority of consumer fireworks available in Canada are becoming more expensive, yet the quality has remained stagnant, and in some cases, is on the decline. The bottom line is that people are getting way less bang for their buck. Last year, for example, marked the release of several new multi-shot cakes from Specialized Pyrotechnics. Granted these are somewhat unique items for the Canadian market, but there is a catch. These items are retailing for between $25.00 and $30.00. In my opinion, $30.00 for a 7 shot cake is absolutely ridiculous ! You can buy quality cakes in the US for half that price, and those items have 25 shots, not just 7! That hardly seems fair. Unfortunately, the fireworks regulations established by the Explosives Regulatory Division of Natural Resources Canada are far too restrictive, allowing only a limited variety of items to be imported and sold in this country. The result of these regulations is that consumers end up paying extravagant prices for mediocre performance fireworks.
Truth be told, there are currently many excellent pyrotechnic devices available in Canada. However, there is also a lot of complete crap saturating the marketplace. What is truly frustrating about this situation is the fact that many fireworks dealers are passing off overpriced, poor quality items to the unsuspecting consumers.
By no means am I suggesting that all fireworks dealers are dishonest and greedy. In fact, most of the vendors I have dealt with personally have been extremely helpful and generous. I think problems arise when dealers stock too many items that do not perform well, yet come with a relatively high price tag for the overall value, rather than carrying less, but only the best. The end result is that is is becoming increasingly restrictive for consumers to purchase fireworks because the prices are too high, and they will often end up buying a lot of the cheaper junk that won't perform, thus discouraging them from buying fireworks in the future.
There is no easy solution to this problem. Of course having less restrictive fireworks regulations would be a step in the right direction, allowing a wider variety of items to enter the market, and encouraging more pyrotechnic manufacturers to import their products into Canada. The bigger the variety, the more competitive the market becomes, and thus prices come down. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the regulations will be seeing any drastic changes in the near future, so we won't hold our breath on that one. One interesting approach to counteracting the high prices/low quality situation would be for several of the smaller fireworks dealers to create a co-op to ensure some type of uniformity within the marketplace. By doing so, these dealers could purchase their stock in bigger quantities directly from the manufacturers and pass on the added savings to the consumers. Furthermore, by working as a collective, dealers could discuss which fireworks are worth carrying and which ones should stay at the factory. In doing so, they would send a clear message to the fireworks manufacturers and distributors that they are not interesting in selling cheap crap just to turn a profit.
FIRE IN THE SKY:
TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL FIREWORKS DISPLAY
By Quickmatch and B.Burnt
Shooting a nice display of consumer fireworks, or any class fireworks for that matter, requires a considerable investment of time, effort and money. There are key points that need to be taken into consideration while planning out such an event, in order to ensure an entertaining and safe fireworks display.
1) Planning: Any good fireworks display requires proper planning prior to the actual shoot. Finding an adequate shooting location, selecting the proper fireworks and coordination the firing sequences are all factors that need to be taken into consideration when planning a display.
2) Safety. Fireworks can be disastrous if not handled properly. Proper safety is essential when dealing with any form of explosives. Selecting a safe shooting location, inspecting items for defects, acquiring safety equipment (googles,fire extinguishers,proper firing platforms), hiring competent assistants, and securing a safety perimeter around the firing range are extremely important to consider when planning a pyrotechnic display. Responsibility and good common sense are also standard requirements.
3) Variety: Selecting a wide variety of fireworks with entertaining and unique effects is essential to any good display. Choosing items that are both reliable and interesting to watch will ensure that the spectators always enjoy the show.
4) Continuity: Maintaining a good rhythm to the display is essential to keep the interest of the audience at it's peak at all times. There is nothing worse is a fireworks display than bad sequencing or long pauses. It is important to maintain a nice flow to the shoot by "layering" the sky with fireworks.
Most consumer fireworks can be divided into several height categories, meaning the altitude that each pyrotechnic effect reaches in the sky. The first category would be "Ground Zero" [0-30 feet] which would include most cones and fountains, wheels, candles, small mine shells, bangers and assorted grounders. These items are generally inexpensive and are designed to grab the attention of the audience at eye level. The second height level is the "Mid Sky" [30-80 feet]. This category consists of most of the more popular and affordable consumer fireworks such as star mines, comets, barrages, multi-effect mortars and other display shells. The third category - "High Rise" [80-200 feet] is made up of larger items which are good for mini and grand finales. Large multi-shot cakes, multi-effect mortars and tubes, comets, barrages and giant color mines are all found in this height level category. They are generally the most expensive items, but also produce the nicest effects available in consumer fireworks.
The important thing to remember is that in order to put on a nice display, it is the pyrotechnic's job to select and sequence items that will literally fill up the 3 different levels of sky, ensuring that the spectators will see fire in the sky regardless of where their eyes are focused.
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