Pyrotechnician Answers Fireworks Questions From Twitter

I'm pyrotechnician Patrick Cyrana

here to answer your questions from the internet.

This is Firework Support.

[upbeat music]

@actalfn asks, How do fireworks go up?

Do it have a small fan underneath. What's up with that?

No, fireworks don't have a small fan that's underneath them.

What they do have is a lift charge.

So when you put the firework into the tube,

the first thing that ignites on the bottom

is the lift charge,

which sends the firework up into the air

and then it explodes once it reaches its maximum altitude.

Typically, a firework will go up 70 feet per inch of shell.

Professional fireworks displays could be either three inch,

four inch, five inch, or six inch.

So if you have a three inch firework shell,

it'll go up 210 feet into the air,

and that's determined by the lift charge inside of it.

There's other methods of putting the firework

up into the air these days.

Disney's using pneumatic

or air devices to blow the firework up into the air

instead of using an actual explosion.

So that cuts down on a lot of the smoke

that you see during a firework display.

@B_Arron asks, I wonder how fireworks are designed.

I have a model here.

This is a cutaway model of a large display shell.

The first thing that happens is the lift charge explodes,

which creates a lot of gas and fire

and pushes the entire shell out of the tube.

At the same time the lift charge gets ignited,

the time fuse starts its path up towards the burst charge.

Now, depending on how big the firework shell is,

that'll determine how long the time fuse is

before it gets all the way up to the burst charge,

which then will explode the firework shell in the sky.

This is an example of a smiley face shell.

They lay the stars in a pattern to create

exactly what shape they want,

and then when the shell goes up into the sky and it bursts,

those stars spread outwards.

Now, this is why you don't always see

the smiley face perfect.

Because it's a round ball that's traveling through the sky,

you might see the firework upside down.

You might see a straight line like this.

Or if you're lucky, you might actually get

the full smiley face.

@athenabread asks, Why do fireworks smell so gross?

So I think that would be a matter of opinion.

If you asked myself or other pyrotechnicians,

I think we would say,

He who has smelt the smoke is never free again,

and that smoke mainly contains sulfur.

The sulfur is one of the main components in black powder,

which consists of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal.

Without the sulfur, the black powder

wouldn't be able to burn as rapidly

and it would more fizzle out

rather than create a rapid explosion of fire.

When the sulfur burns,

it creates a chemical called sulfur dioxide,

which produces that nasty rotten egg smell

that you're smelling.

@JohnnyV453 asks, How do electronic firing systems work

for firework displays?

So, electronic firing systems have three main components.

The remote, the module, and the igniter

or the e-match.

The modules will go out in the field

near to the fireworks.

They can be either wired or wireless.

They typically go about nine feet from the fireworks

themselves because that's the average length of an e-match.

Each terminal will represent

a different firework that will go off.

So this terminal might go at the three second mark

of the show, but this terminal might go for the finale.

When the button is pressed on the remote,

the signal will go to the module,

then igniting the end of the electric match tip,

which will then ignite the firework.

Electric matches have a special chemical composition

on the end of 'em that when voltage goes through them,

it creates a bright flash and spark which ignites fireworks.

There's also a protective shroud

that usually goes over the match tip

because they're friction sensitive

to make sure that you don't accidentally have an issue

where it'll ignite due to friction,

igniting your fireworks prematurely.

Now, electronic firing systems can work in two ways.

You can either do it manually where you press one button

at a time and each fire will go off,

or you can choreograph it on the computer.

@bayntonward asks, Firework shows are so funny

because like, for the first few minutes you're like, wowwww

that's cool, and then for the next 10 minutes you're like,

so that was the finale, right?

And then it keeps going.

So, to capture the audience's attention

in a professional firework display,

we like to build in little sequences into the display

that create false finales or mini finales,

and then we continue with the body of the display

until we reach the actual finale.

One of the ways we do that is with choreographing software,

to ensure that you don't have any dead air

or what we call sky puke

is where you have too much fireworks in the sky.

The lines along the bottom of the screen

represent fireworks along a timeline.

You could put down a musical track

and then each of the fireworks could be set off

right at a certain beat or note of the song.

So these lines show the height of the firework

and where they will break.

Certain fireworks will go up to 210 feet.

Others will go up to 280, 350 feet.

This display is for a custom wedding,

which was two songs long.

So this one happens to be a six minute

custom pyro musical.

Finale 3D is the most widely used

choreographing software for fireworks.

This software can also be used

as a simulation for customers.

We can make a video of the fireworks ahead of time

and then show it to the customer

to see if that's what they want based on the music

and the choreographing that we design.

@Isegal76 asks, Where are most fireworks made?

There's one province in China

where almost all the fireworks are made.

That's where all of the black powder is sorted.

That's where all of the casings are made.

That's where all of your consumer fireworks

and your display fireworks

that you see on the 4th of July are packaged and processed

before they're shipped out to other countries.

@DaveFromUpNorth asks,

Can fireworks only fire at a certain height,

meaning you are safe to fly above and be safe?

When you're doing a professional fireworks display,

you do have to notify the FAA

and you have to get a notice to all airmen,

which is called the NOTAM.

A NOTAM notifies the FAA

and all planes flying in the area

that there will be a firework display

from a certain time up to a certain altitude.

We'll also try to reach out to any pilots in the area

and they'll warn us,

hey, if you fire at us, we'll fire back.

We do a lot of fireworks shows near Air Force bases.

The Air Force might have flying maneuvers

and stuff that they can't reschedule.

So what we have to do at that point

is pause the firework display,

make sure that it's safely out of our airspace,

and then we could resume the firework display afterwards.

@scifri_ebooks asks, How do fireworks get their colors?

The main component in fireworks is black powder.

Black powder consists of charcoal, sulfur,

and potassium nitrate,

and this, when burned, creates more of an orange fire.

Black powder has different consistencies.

The finer black powder burns rapidly,

and it's used for things like a burst charge in the sky

where you need a big rapid explosion.

Whereas the coarser black powder would be used

for more of a lift charge where you need a lot of fire

to create the burst up in the sky.

To create the reds, the greens, the blues, and the whites,

you add coloring agents such as barium, strontium, copper.

This is strontium carbonate.

It's a coloring agent that's added to black powder.

It's what's used to create the red color.

Some of the more difficult colors to do are bright whites,

which create a lot of magnesium, titanium,

and this powder would be an aluminum powder,

which creates the loud bangs

and explosions in salutes or reports.

A salute is just the bang that you hear.

So, aluminum is the main component in that,

and it creates the bright flash and the loud noise.

@adgirlMM asks, Remember that time

when San Diego's entire firework show went off

and was over in 30 seconds? Oops.

Yeah, I remember that.

I think a lot of people that were there agreed.

It's definitely one of the most spectacular

firework shows they've ever seen.

Firing systems all run off of electricity,

so it could have been a surge of electricity,

it could have been some sort of malfunction,

which the computer decided

it was gonna fire all cues at once.

There's lots of things that could go wrong

during a professional firework display.

The mortar could detonate inside of the firework tube,

which could create an explosion,

sending all the other firework tubes around it to lighting

in a manner where when they blow off

the firework's not pointing straight up in the air anymore.

It could be pointing towards the audience,

the spectators, the crew.

And one thing I could say about pyros

is when we make a mistake once,

we tend to not make it again.

@bshoup asks, What was the last innovation in fireworks?

Purple?

Actually, purple's been around for a decent amount of time.

Purple is a combination of both red and blue coloring agent.

I would say one of the more recent innovations in fireworks

would be the introduction of the ghost shell.

In a ghost shell, you have stars that burn in the sky

that are covered with a powder

where they don't show their color

as they're burning in the first part of the display.

So you don't see the flash in the sky,

and then these will start burning in the sky,

creating what looks like a fade pattern.

Some other innovations

that I would say have taken place recently

in the firework industry would be Disney's use of microchips

to explode the fireworks into the sky

instead of using a time fuse.

The microchips are controlled by a radio frequency signal,

and when they reach the right part in the sky

or the right part in the song, they'll go off perfectly

to make sure that they're synchronized

exactly as they should be.

Another cool innovation in fireworks

isn't just in the fireworks themselves,

but in the way that the fireworks are lit.

So what people are doing now is they're taking comets,

which create the large streak across the sky,

and they're putting them in different patterns,

in different racks,

and then firing them with electronic firing systems

to the exact right timing

where each comet is at a different angle.

It creates a perfect parabolic effect,

which looks like a geometric shape in the sky.

@Tera_Monique asks, who invented fireworks?

Like who was the first person to put this together?

I'm guessing it was an accident.

So approximately 2000 years ago,

a Chinese cook mixed together

three common kitchen ingredients at the time,

saltpeter, which is potassium nitrate,

charcoal, and sulfur.

Shortly after realizing that this combination

of fireworks created an explosion,

they started experimenting and putting them into capsules

or bamboo sticks to contain the explosion.

These became the first version of a firecracker.

These bamboo sticks were then used as a tradition

to ward off evil spirits in the Chinese culture.

@DanburyPatch asks, Statistically,

what is the most dangerous firework?

So statistically, the most dangerous firework is a sparkler.

Sparklers can burn at up to 2000 degrees.

Parents and caregivers might think of this

as the least dangerous firework

and leave children unattended

or unsupervised with these,

causing more injuries than you would realize.

In my opinion, mortars these days

can be fairly dangerous as well.

Mortars are the larger fireworks

that you hear when you see those large bangs in the sky.

These create the big explosions.

This would be your standard size mortar tubes

that you could buy off the shelf at a consumer store.

A mortar tube used in a professional display

could be three, six, or even up to 12 inches.

So typically what you would do with a mortar shell

is get the fuse to its longest point,

drop it down the tube, leave enough outside,

and then light the end of the fuse.

You see the green fuse, which is called visco fuse.

It's called a safety fuse.

This buys you enough time

where you could safely get away from the firework

before it launches up into the air.

There's lots of things that could go wrong

with mortar shells when using them.

Most people don't realize they could go in either way,

and it's very hard to see if you're using it at night,

which way is the right way.

The shell could be put down into the firework upside down

or the actual mortar tube might malfunction.

The professional mortar tube is gonna be made

out of an HDPE, or high density polyethylene plastic.

So instead of fracturing or fragmenting

if the firework would accidentally explode inside of it,

it would just expand

so it doesn't send any fragments or shrapnel anywhere.

Most consumer fireworks

are made out of a cheaper fiberglass material.

So you always wanna be aware that when you are using them,

you have it faced in the right direction

and always have a sober adult in charge.

@bloodyred08 asks, Why did they have to ban M80s?

For the children.

It was decided in 1966 that too many bodily injuries

to children were occurring as a result of M-80s

and they were taken entirely off the market.

That doesn't mean you can't find an M-80 today.

Unfortunately, many black marketplaces

are still manufacturing M-80s to fill the void

and to fill the demand that's still there

for people that still want that big bang.

An M-80 will contain about three grams

of flash powder in comparison to a stick of dynamite,

which can contain up to 190 grams of powder.

Flash powder is a mixture of black powder

and other heavy metals

that create the bright flash, like aluminum or magnesium.

So although these are a lot less dangerous

and contain less powder than a stick of dynamite,

they're still banned from the market.

After September 11th,

fireworks containing over a certain amount

of powder were pulled off the market

so that way they couldn't be misused,

opened up, and the powder could be used

for various purposes other than displaying fireworks.

@DoctorKevo asks, What kind of fireworks is your favorite?

I like the gold drippy drippies. So do I.

So the gold drippy drippies are actually

the most favorite firework among most pyrotechnicians.

They come from Japan.

They have special chemicals in the black powder

which allow them to rain down

to the ground slightly longer than a normal firework would,

giving you that lasting gold impression in the air.

Traditional firework displays, when they have this effect,

it'll occur as the finale

because it's really the most dangerous firework

in the firework display.

You're gonna have fire all around you,

so you don't really want that to happen

during the entire display

because you could have fires all over the place

as a result of the fire hitting the ground.

I'm not saying that the exact design is a secret,

but it's not widely known as to how it's made.

There are a lot of people that try to recreate the effect,

but the traditional Japanese Kamuro is definitely something

that the Japanese do specifically well

and really can't be recreated by many other people.

@heliumkibzz asks, How do idols stand on stage

while pyrotechnics blast all around them?

I flinch watching it through a screen.

Fireworks used for the staged setting

have a specific height and duration that they fire for.

They're also made in a laboratory setting

as opposed to consumer fireworks,

which are made in a factory.

So the fireworks that we use on stage

and in theatrical performances are very safe, low fallout.

So they don't have anything that's gonna come down and burn.

Just like artists will get together

and rehearse with their dancers

and their band ahead of time,

they also get together with their pyro crews and rehearse.

@dubw00ds asks, Do fireworks even work in the rain?

Yes, we do a lot of firework shows for weddings,

and what we tell our wedding clients

is you can't change your wedding date

whether it's gonna rain or not.

So we have to make sure the fireworks

are gonna work in the rain regardless.

So what we do is we cover the firing systems,

the modules and the remotes themselves,

in plastic to make sure the weather doesn't affect them.

And then we also wrap the fireworks in a small

thin plastic as well, so that way when we fire it,

it burns right through and goes right through the plastic.

So the rain isn't really an issue.

However, heavy winds and thunderstorms,

so winds above 25 miles an hour and thunder,

will prohibit a firework display from happening.

@kristinaxb asks, You cannot convince me

that there is a difference between consumer

and professional fireworks.

Our neighborhood is insane right now.

The line between consumer and professional fireworks

has been being pushed closer

towards the professional fireworks.

Certain fireworks are being brought into the country

as professional, but then rebranded and reclassified

once they get here, into consumer.

So yes, the consumer fireworks

that you're seeing are definitely getting louder and bigger.

Now you have up to three inch,

even four inch consumer shells that you could buy,

which wasn't allowed previously.

@kurtbrobain asks, How does one go about

becoming a fireworks pyrotechnician?

I would reach out to your local firework company

or your local special effects company

and see if they have any openings as maybe a volunteer.

You wanna make sure you have the right temperament for it.

You have to be someone that's calm in the midst of chaos.

During a firework display,

you have bombs going off all around you.

You might have several fires

that might occur in the display site,

in the fallout area,

that have to be extinguished,

and that's just part of doing business.

@Ibraheem_Asheer asks,

How do you know if a firework is going to work?

When the fireworks manufacturer build the firework,

do they test all the fireworks before they ship them out?

No. Where do you think the term dud comes from?

It's mainly a firework term.

Part of the fun of fireworks

comes in finding out whether it works or not.

You have to make sure that you know what you're getting.

Most fireworks have QR codes on them nowadays,

so you could watch a video of what it is ahead of time,

but make sure that you're getting a firework

that's appropriate for the setting that you're using it in.

Don't get a firework that's gonna go up several hundred feet

in the air if you live in an apartment

and you're using it in your parking lot.

@artsyhonker asks, How does one safely dispose

of a firework, unused, found in a shed?

We don't want to set it off and aren't sure how old it is.

Likely it's at least a few years old.

Smaller non aerial fireworks can be soaked

and then double wrapped in plastic bags

and put in your normal garbage.

Larger aerial fireworks, you might wanna reach out

to a fire department

and see if they could properly dispose

of these fireworks for you.

@KimWinehouse asks, Well rest in peace

to the earth's ozone layer after tonight's fireworks.

So yes, fireworks obviously are a combustion effect

and they do have some effect on the ozone layer.

But when you consider volcanoes,

all the combustion from all the airplanes

and jets and stuff like that,

there's definitely other stuff

that are contributing to the ozone layer.

Disney is actually the largest importer

and user of fireworks in the country.

There is a myth that the ozone above Disney

is totally charred, which means that's probably why

most people are getting a little bit more tanned

at Disney World than they are around the rest of the world.

But there's no evidence to support that.

@sunflowerrosee asks,

Why is South Carolina so obsessed with fireworks?

Been in the state for 15 minutes

and already passed three firework stores.

There are certain laws in certain states

that differentiate what fireworks can be used.

For example, in California and New Jersey,

we're only allowed to use what's called safe

and sane fireworks, which are sparklers,

fountains, and novelties.

But other aerial states,

such as Pennsylvania and South Carolina,

could use the whole spectrum of fireworks,

Roman candles, aerial cakes,

mortar tubes, and likewise.

So these are all the questions for today.

Be safe out there, pyros. Keep all your fingers.

This has been Fireworks Support.