Here’s how fireworks work on the Fourth of July

CEDAR RAPIDS — Among holiday celebrations, nothing quite holds a candle to the commercial fireworks shows in cities and towns across America — from dazzling bursts to awe-inspiring booms in celebration of our nation's birth.

What does it take for every pop, shimmer and fizzle to go off without a hitch on the Fourth of July? A lot of planning, according to the crew responsible for shows around Eastern Iowa each July.

With months of planning and many hours of setup, here’s a look behind the scenes that ensure Freedom Festival goes out with a bang.

Behind the boom

Behind this year’s 22-minute show was 5,756 shells shot from five locations on the roof of the Veterans Memorial Building. But to the pyrotechnicians planning it all, a shell is not simply a shell.

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J&M Displays of Yarmouth, Iowa, the vendor for Freedom Festival’s annual show, works with shells ranging in diameter from 2.5 inches to 12 inches. Larger shells can more easily do bigger and more complex patterns.

Fireworks shots that evolve to display multiple colors or types of effects before burning out have what are called petals — two changes is a double, three is a triple, and so on.

Freedom Festival’s show is restricted to shells of 2.5 and 3 inches, which have a lower kickback, due to positioning and proximity to downtown crowds. But the quality of a show isn’t necessarily about the size of its shells, said Justin Thomas, director of close proximate fireworks for J&M Displays.

“The quality is there, you just have to shoot more shells to get that effect,” he said. “We try to have as much variety in our shell effects as possible.”

How do they time it to music?

Big fireworks shows like the Freedom Festival’s — which this year cost about $45,000, and was funded through sponsorships and donations — start with proposals to the committees planning them. Each year, J&M offers Freedom Festival a proposal itemizing each shot in the dark down to its colors, sounds and effects.

Then, shows are scripted using software that allows producers to preview the show and time it to music. Once music is picked, the software presents options for the types of effects and shells that will work well, allowing each explosion to happen in tandem with the music or a song’s lyrics.

Marc Thannert, display producer for J&M, has gotten a feel for how to match songs and effects over 25 years.

“If it’s a bigger instrumental song like ‘God Bless America,’ there will be long-duration shells where more of the gold hangs in the sky with big crescendos of music,” he said. “Fast effects go with bright colors and a pop song. ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ uses lots of movement and bright shells.”

As new effects and stock are imported, a proposal system helps coordinate it all. In addition to size, shells are categorized by color, special effects, and those used for grand finales.

“You want to have a pretty good variety of standard color shows, then special effects like extra breaks, or a willow that transitions colors from red to green,” Thomas said.

The setup

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With thousands of tubes, thousands of shells, a nest of wires and a labyrinth of racks to hold it all together, crews show up the day before Independence Day to start a setup that takes upward of 24 hours. If the heat is blistering, crews will work overnight when it’s cooler.

Pyrotechnics are dropped into fiberglass mortars set up on steel frames. After setup is finished, continuity testing is conducted in daylight, a few hours before the show.

What about the weather?

This year, Freedom Festival’s start time converged with thunderstorm chances above 50 percent around 9 p.m. But Paul Myers, who has been running the show from the ground for 25 years, wasn’t worried.

Fireworks can be shot in the rain, no matter how heavy it is. If setup happens on rainy days, the team works underneath tents. In any case, fireworks are covered with plastic as setup progresses.

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“If we have to, and it’s raining during the show, we can shoot through the plastic,” Myers said.

Wind and lighting are what he’s concerned about. Ideal wind conditions are under 12 mph, and wind speeds over 20 mph can pose problems. But in downtown Cedar Rapids, he said the wind dies down more often than not.

“The thing about Cedar Rapids is that, invariably, the wind dies at night,” he said. “It might be windy during the day, but at night there’s no wind.”

Myers also stays in close contact with KCRG Meteorologist Joe Winters, giving him extra confidence in a forecast that can make or break each show.

Evolution of safety

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When Thomas started working at J&M in 2000, most shows were fired by hand. Today, most are controlled remotely by computers a few hundred feet away in a tent called the “Shoot Shack.”

“A couple guys would be on the line, walking mortar to mortar to light each shell, waiting a few beats in between. For a long time, that’s the way shows were commonly done,” he said.

When he started, about 70 percent of shows were lit by hand. By 2010, the proportion flipped. Now, only about 10 percent of shows are not fired using computers.

The shows that are still fired by hand today are done so at the preference of certain fire brigades, or when show needs to be done on a smaller budget. Each break in the sky requires its own separate wiring, if controlled by computer, and setup takes much longer.

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When things go wrong

Thanks to the evolution of technology, firing commercial shows today is safer than in the past. Mishaps are rare; Thomas recalls only two times he had to stop a show.

One was impacted by a last-minute change in the Shoot Shack location. Another was on a day with heavy rain, which can be a challenge when working with powder-heavy explosives soaking in the humidity.

“About one-third of the way into a show, we had a tube where a shell fired, but it was wet enough that the shell did not go as high as it should’ve,” Thomas said. “It made it halfway up the tube and blew in that rack.”

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A domino effect caused damage to nearby mortars and shells, forcing the crew to pause the show. Operators on the ground, like Myers, always have an emergency stop button at hand while monitoring progress.

But, overall, it’s always a banging good time.

“We get to launch fireworks into the air. It’s a good place to be, that’s what I’ll say,” Thomas said.

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.