We are camping ten miles South of Lake Havasu City, Az. on open desert land with a group from the Escapee RV Club that is known as the Boomers. This is a casual social group for those born around 1940-1960 or those who have a youthful mindset. They travel all over, stay in touch by e-mail and gather wherever and whenever they find something interesting to do.
There are about 40-50 RVs here to see the fireworks shows presented by the Western Pyrotechnical Association. This is a four day trade show and series of training seminars for anyone who wants to become certified as a “pyro”, or fireworks technician. http://westernpyro.org/forms/wwb2011-schedule.pdf
There are teaching seminars all day long and live-fire training every night until 10:30. We arrive around 3 pm and settle in to avoid the huge crowd. It is interesting to watch the preparations and training being done on the field.
No need to wait for dark as people are being certified and fireworks start around 4pm or so. There are different classes of certification and we generally see "Class B Open Firing " before and after the main show which begins at 8pm. This is a professionally choreographed show given by either Extreme Pyrotechnics or Pyro Spectacular.
Each $60,000 main show features about 1,800 firings, many that the public has never seen before and some weighing as much as 35 to 60 pounds. Some of these traveled 2-3 times higher and farther than we had ever seen before. These shows are free as they give these companies a way to train Pyros, develop their programs and test new fireworks safely.
People are warned to keep pets away and turn all car alarms off, as they will activate due to the vibrations from the explosions. Sunday nights closing show, fired simultaneously from both ends, the center and behind the field, began around 5pm and went almost non-stop until around 10pm. One display lasting one minute had 700,000 fireworks in it(not ladyfingers). That’s a lot of fireworks folks, and the Fourth of July will never be the same again for us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkEnSMYeaV0
Click on the link above for a short show of last year’s program and interesting links to past year’s shows.
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