Fireworks Safety and the Environment
Shortly before American celebrated its first Independence Day anniversary in 1777, future president John Adams wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail, “The day will be the most memorable in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parades, bonfires and illuminations [fireworks] from one end of the continent to the other from this day forward, forevermore.”
This Fourth of July, the City of Redondo Beach will carry on the tradition foreseen by Adams with a fireworks extravaganza that will be enjoyed by an estimated 200,000 people.
At the touch of a button on a barge in King Harbor’s main channel, the first lit fuse will ignite a lifting charge, sending up a salvo of shells that will paint the night sky with colorful mixtures of gunpowder, choreographed to music.
The grand finale will consist of over 250 display shells chained together and launched during a span of just 11 seconds.
The colors will call to mind the immigrants of all races and backgrounds who found in America not only a home but also a common creed. The bangs and booms will echo the explosions our heroes have heard in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, and on the beaches of Normandy, the fields of Gettysburg and the townships of Lexington and Concord. The fiery blossoms will represent the American passion, dynamism and creativity that brought us the innovations of yesterday and promises of tomorrow.
Last year’s Redondo fireworks show lights up south Hermosa Beach and the Crystal Cove apartments.
After 30 years of hosting a fireworks show at Wilson Park, the Torrance city council has voted to cancel next year’s show. And this year the fireworks that traditionally have lit up the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth will be dark because Liberty State Park in Jersey City can no longer afford to fund the show.
Redondo’s show is being funded by a private-public sector partnership spearheaded by Pete Moffett, who also produces Manhattan Beach’s annual Holiday Season fireworks show. The city is picking up the cost of the barge. King Harbor businesses and families who buy tickets to the picnic in the Seaside Lagoon are covering the other costs.
Twenty-five years ago, professional firework shows typically lasted an hour. Because of budget cutbacks, modern shows, including Redondo’s, are about 20 minutes.
Chinese arrows
Fundamentally, fireworks are unchanged since the ninth century when the Chinese threw bamboo stalks filled with gunpowder into fires to scare away evil spirits. By the year 1200, fireworks with guidance fins were being attached to arrows in warfare. Arabic countries still refer to fireworks rockets as “Chinese Arrows.”
The shells work with flash powder for the bangs, colors and starbursts, and use gunpowder for the launch and aerial explosions.
Shells resemble oversized snow cones or coconuts wrapped in paper mache. When the cone ignites, the explosion fires the shell high in the sky. Shells are filled with colored marbles of flash powder, which explode at the top of the trajectories, scattering the stars and painting the sky with blue dahlias, golden willows, green chrysanthemums, silver palm trees and pink peonies.
Computers or electronic firing boards are used to control the launch and synchronize the aerial bursts to music.
The Redondo fireworks crews put in long shifts placing racks and guns. Pyrotechnicians organize launch sequences to choreograph the color coordinated bursts.
The completed setup is a maze of wooden frameworks holding hundreds of black guns and mortars, like huge, four-foot long shotgun shells. The frameworks span 100 feet of barge. Red and orange wires stream from each tube, connecting each firework to the electrical firing board that will ignite them.
In this explosive medium, timing is everything. It is July. The season of Sky Painting has returned.
You can get full details on the July 4th celebration at redondofireworks.com.
Fireworks safety and environment
by David MacCormick
Of all the challenges pyrotechnicians face, safety is always the number one priority. We work closely with the Redondo Beach Fire Department.
The distance between our firing site and the audience exceeds legal requirements. The water surrounding the barge prevents spectators from entering the firing zone. Boats are not permitted to approach the barge and onlookers are not allowed on the breakwater near the barge.
After more than 20 years in the industry, we have never sustained an injury.
Each Fourth of July emergency rooms treat 10,000 fireworks-related injuries. Half of those occur to children 15 and under from firecrackers, bottle rockets and homemade explosives. Sparklers burn at more than 1,200 degrees and cause 20 percent of all fireworks injuries.
According to Robert Franck, Redondo Beach Deputy Fire Marshal, “In the Beach Cities, fireworks are illegal. That includes firecrackers and red smoke balls.”
“Last year on July 3, our task force seized 3,400 lbs of fireworks at a South Bay residence, enough explosives to have destroyed surrounding homes, had they ignited.”
We are frequently asked if fireworks damage the environment.
Gunpowder used in the explosive charges for the Redondo show will release 75 pounds of carbon dioxide into the environment. That is the equivalent of 12 cars, each traveling 12 miles around the Redondo Beach Pier.
To put that in perspective, a modern Boeing jet at altitude produces 40,000 pounds of carbon dioxide an hour.
Researchers in Germany and at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are working on eco-friendly pyrotechnics and nitrogen-based fuels that produce less smoke and use fewer toxic metals and burning molecules. The main stumbling block remains cost.
Editor’s note: Redondo Beach resident David MacCormick is the managing partner of company Exposhows, a pyrotechnic event management company (exposhows.net). He company is producing this Sunday’s Redondo Beach Fourth of July fireworks show at the Seaside Lagoon.