Fireworks: The How To Guide by this Idiot

It is nearly the May long weekend, which means it is time to celebrate Queen Victoria by blowing up a small piece of Canada with fireworks. Yes, that's right. FIREWORKS!!!

Fireworks!

In this blog post I'm going to explain how to do your own show in your own backyard.

Fireworks have been an important long weekend tradition for us as long as I can remember. We bought a package at Biway or Giant Tiger, took them to the cottage, and lit them off for the entire street. When I was a teenager, I started to assume some of the responsibility for picking and lighting the explosives. Although I have fond memories of fireworks from my youth, I'm going to call these the Dark Ages.

Why?

Because we bought fireworks at Biway or Giant Tiger. The question every year was whether to get the school house or not. Whether to spend $20, $50, $75 or $100 (usually only $20 or $50). I knew it could be better, because I'd seen professional displays, but I didn't know it could be better for us amateurs.

That was until I found Victory Fireworks. It's like buying from the guys in the trailers, only you pay what they pay, and you get way more selection. I was so happy that I found Victory's website, because it shows videos (they're 'porno for pyros,' so to speak), which give you a really good idea what to expect as you plan your show. </unpaid promotional spiel>

Box of Explosive Awesome!

So, for the rest of this post I'm going to explain my current opinion about assembling a fireworks display in the backyard. If you have a firing control system, and multiple launch areas, then my advice isn't going to help you (and you should be watching Pyros on the Discovery Channel every Tuesday at 8pm for pointers - I watched a couple of episodes, but recently cut down my cable package, so can't watch anymore). These are this idiot's ideas about putting together an interesting show with only one launch pad and only one lighting device.

First, follow all safety instructions on the fireworks themselves, as well as the more general instructions and safety procedures. I've singed a few digits lighting fireworks, and my nephew learned a painful lesson about touching the very bright lights of sparklers. Be safe people, you're dealing with explosives and/or extreme heat here.

Second, learn the different types of fireworks. There are basically two types. The type that launch into the air, and the type that don't. There's a lot more variety in the kind that launch than in the stationary fireworks, so let's deal with the non-launching ones first.

Non-launching fireworks include fountains, wheels, ground effects and of course burning schools. You light them, they burn brightly and sometimes loudly, and can last from 10 to 60 seconds. I like them because they add some different elevations to a show. We don't have anywhere safe to which we could attach wheels, so I don't buy those. Nor do I buy ground effects which are interesting, but hardly worth the money, and schools are pretty boring and have a tendency to take so long burning that you have to do them last (I'm buying one for Canada Day, because in theory school will be out forever for me). This leaves fountains, and I've tried most of the ones on the Victory website over the past five or six years. It's worth it to spend on the better ones like Mad Dog, because they last longer and have interesting effects on top of burning brightly. I generally grab two to four of these for a show. I'd grab more, but I'd be getting into repetition territory.

The other main type of fireworks are the ones that launch high into the air, of which there are four broad types. There are shells/mortars/mines and bangers that launch a single fireworks high into the sky, usually with a loud bang or two. There are roman candles that launch a half dozen to a baker's dozen shots into the sky. There are large roman candles called 'barrages' that launch 2-4 dozen shots. Finally, there are cakes. Sometimes cakes have ground effect elements, sometimes they're little more than barrages, and sometimes they're a combination of mines/shells/mortars. I buy each type in varying combinations.

The bread and butter of any display are roman candles and barrages. Here's my buying strategy for them. I buy the expensive candles and the cheap barrages. They give the best bang for the buck. I buy roman candles like Screaming Banshee, because they give really interesting effects and, compared to the same effect in barrages and cakes, they're cheap. Whether you see six wailers or 35, the effect is the same. I buy barrages like Asteroids, because it's slightly better than the comparably cheap roman candles, but has interesting effects as well. They also give more length than normal roman candles.

I like to intersperse the candles and barrages with some shells. They tend to be a bit louder than candles, and they are short and sweet, which is a good balance with some of the longer barrages or fountains. I buy across the price spectrum in the shells category and I aim for effects that I don't have in candles and barrages. Cosmic Rain is simple and unique, as is Spring Fling, which are at opposite ends of the price spectrum.

This leaves our finale pieces, the cakes. They tend to be on the expensive side of things, so I haven't had a good chance to sample them all. There was a guy that came into the store at the same time as me today, and he dropped a grand to try a third of the cakes. Me, I usually get 2 to 4 of them, and I've found a couple that I love, so that really only leaves me with 1 or 2 to test out every time. My two must-haves are Wonder Wave and Menace. I was going to try Greedy Goblins, which is a new release, but is so new that they didn't have it in stock yet, so I let the store guy pick a fill-in for me and he opted for the Queen of Hearts. I like Wonder Wave, because it sprays the fireworks out in a fan pattern, which is very cool and adds some more dimensionality to the display. The video doesn't quite do Menace justice; it really does fill the sky. I finish with it, unless the store is out of them, which happened to me a couple of years ago.

So that's my buying strategy. My launching strategy is to mix things up. Obviously you want to start with sparklers for kids and the kids at heart in all of us. I'm just about finished my stockpile of globracelets that I bought in the wake of the sparkler-burning incident, and those are a big hit with the kids in the audience as well. I bought a stockpile of sparklers today that should last both this weekend and probably Canada Day as well.

Next, I like to start with a bang, literally. I'll follow a banger with a candle, then a shell, then a barrage, and then maybe a fountain. It really depends how many of each type of firework I buy. In the past I've bought shells-candles-barrages-fountains in the following ratio 2:2:2:1. This year I went 4:2:2:1, so I'm going to be able to put a shell between every candle and barrage, and a couple of fountains throughout the show for some variety.

I end with all the cakes.

Now I want to reemphasize the importance of safety, especially keeping unlit fireworks far away from both your spectators and the lit firework (my father-in-law made that memorable mistake once). I also think it's important to know what firework you've lit, and how many shots it fires. You don't want to be guessing if a firework is done or not, or a dud or not. This is where some research before you buy, or at the latest, before you launch really comes in handy.

So much firework fantasticness!

For those attending our show on the weekend, here's the launch sequence, including links to the video and/or description page for each (this year's new experiments are indicated with a 'new' in brackets after the name):

1. Sparklers
2. Air Bomb
3. Asteroids
4. Cosmic Rain
5. Screaming Banshee
6. Keg Fountain (new)
7. Silver Palm
8. Wicked
9. Supersonic Bang
10. Silver Bee
11. Night Rage (new)
12. Meteors (new)
13. Rainbow with Whistles (new)
14. African Lion
15. Blistering Cactus
16. Crackling Bomb
17. Fantasmic
18. Heaven's Gate (new)
19. Magnum Bombard
20. Golden Eye (new)
21. Cosmic Demon (new)
22. Spring Fling (new)
23. Paradise Birds (new)
24. Jackpot Fountain (new)
25. Greedy Goblin Queen of Hearts (new)
26. Wonder Wave
27. Menace

Your votes and feedback are much appreciated in the perpetual pursuit of perfection. Feel free to keep score as you watch, so that I know what to replace for the Canada Day show!