Staring into the black Independence Day night from a stretched-out Indian blanket, the sky was set on fire.
Erupting with brilliant showers of colored light accompanied by shock waves of bursting sound that echoed across the City of Norwich, I was brought back to fond childhood memories of fireworks on the 4th of July.
Always fascinated with the displays and longing to launch one off myself, I contacted Majestic Fireworks Inc., in anticipation of this year’s show to see if I could get a closer look.
The company’s owners, husband and wife Edward and Joan Bielby, were brave enough to invite me down to the Chenango County Fairgrounds this past weekend as they set up 1,153 fireworks used in Norwich’s show.
Arriving at around 2 p.m., with two extra crewmen, it still took the couple nearly five hours to set up.
“Why do I do it?” said Ed, repeating my question in a tone to make me feel like I had asked a stupid one.
“The thrill of it, the feeling of being on the edge – the show to me is the best part,” he said.
“We always joked that if he got killed doing this, he’d die doing something he loved,” said Joan, who darted a comical yet concerned look at her husband, who responded with a glance and a grin.
Obviously, a couple after my own heart.
I had my own illegal experience in my youth with setting off our own fireworks purchased over the border in Pennsylvania. When I first contacted the couple, I imagined a giant streaking rocket cutting through the air with sparks of ignition gnawing at my back as I pulled away from lighting a three-second fuse just a little too late. This was not the case and like usual, New York State looking out for the welfare of the public ruined all my fun.
“Can I see that?” I asked, after Ed revealed an 8-inch diameter explosive charge that was to be one of three to highlight Saturday’s display.
Again, repeating in that tone, “Can you see it?” said Ed, “No, no you can’t. You can’t light them or handle them, it’s the law. We could lose our business and these things are dangerous if you don’t know what you doing.”
Joan pulled me aside and explained. Fireworks are classified as 1.3 in New York State on the scale of licensed explosives. 1.1 is for dynamite, 1.2 for black powder, 1.4 are common low level fireworks like sparklers. New York State forbids all the above to the public without a proper license.
Majestic Fireworks, based in Westmoreland, is a large operation in central New York and employs 45 workers, many certified to handle fireworks. They have been coming to perform the Norwich show since it began and they also put on the annual display at the New York State Fair. Joan and Ed founded the company 30 years ago.
If I couldn’t light them offm then I thought I should talk to the guys who can.
In setting up the Norwich show, the couple also brought along two other crew members, Tim Vaile and Matt Smith.
“I love this job, you get to blow stuff up,” joked Matt, who had been doing the work for the past four years.
Tim, a 10-year veteran of setting up fireworks displays, said, “Lighting them off is the best part, obviously, it’s worth the effort.”
That effort included setting up a thousand plus HDPE pipes, specially designed to absorb a blast on a defaulting charge.
“You got to remember that if some guy in China messes up the powder mix just a little bit, it can mean a big difference to the guy lighting the fuse,” said Ed, who recalled a few malfunctioning incidents in which the charges exploded in the barrels.
Each charge was placed in its own tube and packed tightly inside. The fuse is then draped out of the pipe and hangs outside. At the end of the three-foot long black powder fuse is a half-inch densely packed tip which typically has a three-second delay after lighting it. The half inch tip is the only delay you get; once the flame hits the black powder, it zaps to the charge in an instant.
“If you stretched a line from here, over to that truck (more than 30 feet away) and lit the other end, you wouldn’t have enough time to let go of it before getting burned,” said Ed, who compared the time of travel to lighting a line of gasoline on fire, but faster.
The final display for the evening’s entertainment included 300 connected shots that would take about 60 to 80 seconds to fire off.
“What’s inside the fireworks?” I asked.
“Well, you’ll never find that out. When it comes to what’s inside, no one will tell you,. It’s like a professional chef giving away his recipe. The professional fireworks manufacturers are the same. They are an artwork of chemistry in a tube, and no one wants to share their secret ingredients,” said Joan.
So you’re probably wondering what I actually did get to do with the crew on Saturday. Well, besides being given a crash course in explosives safety, I basically helped Matt dig three two-foot deep holes to place the four-foot tubes used to launch the charges. Not glamorous, but even only watching the show, like Tim said, it was still worth it.