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Rocket man | page 1, 2
We try not to look at it as a dangerous profession, but it certainly is. We're dealing with explosives, sometimes large-size explosives. We have safety precautions, safety clothing. When we're on a fireworks site, we're always thinking about safety and just being cautious and careful about it. Do you worry about fireworks falling on people on the ground? Part of getting a permit to do a fireworks display is providing what we call a fall-out or safety zone. We have guidelines set up to decide how large an area that needs to be based on the size of the shell or the device that we're using. If the audience stops at a barricade that says stop, they're safe. Wind and things of that nature can disrupt that fall-out area. So, my recommendation is always stay back. Quite honestly, getting close doesn't make viewing the fireworks any better. You just have to crane your neck and look up higher. How do you deal with fog? It's one of our most difficult elements. We do the Chronicle's Fourth of July show every year in San Francisco. It's just a flip of the coin whether there's going to be fog or not. But we try to plan our show with a lot of lower level elements in it so that even if the fog does come in, a good portion of the show will still be able to be viewed. What's the weirdest thing you've ever been asked to do? A lady whose favorite color was green was getting married. They wanted an all-green fireworks display. For somebody to come up and ask for a five-minute show of all green was one of my most unique requests. Can any private citizen commission a big fireworks display? Anybody -- birthday party, wedding, graduation; we do high school graduations, high school homecoming games. Obviously, July Fourth is our main season. New Year's this year is going to be one of our busiest New Year's ever. Spring is very busy for us. We do a lot of the baseball teams' opening days. Continually through the year, we're doing movies, television, theme parks. Every weekend, we're doing something somewhere in California. On Dec. 31, 1999, you're going to be hard at work. Is that frustrating? It is a little bit. We work so hard for the Fourth of July. The stress level is enormous. It's nice to take a breather. We typically start working on the next Fourth of July in October, November. This year, we have to hit the ground running and continue on. And you won't be sipping champagne until 1 a.m. That's one of the deterrents for a lot of the guys that do this. Most of the helpers have regular jobs; they do this as a part-time hobby. Is there a special way to transport fireworks? Just the types of boxes they're transported in, the way that they're stacked in a truck. Fireworks are pretty stable unless they get around heat or fire. They don't typically go off from bouncing or shock or traveling down the road. To my knowledge there has not been a reported highway-type accident with fireworks as with some of the other hazardous materials that have had a lot of problems. But when you're driving down the road, you're thinking about it. If the truck bangs or something, it's like, "Whoa!" After Fourth of July, do you have your own celebration -- like a July 5th barbecue? Yeah, right. July 5th, I'm trying to sleep.
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