The ART and SCIENCE of the SPECTACULAR Much work goes into an 8-minute fireworks eruption

COEUR d’ALENE — Thousands will throng the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene tonight to see Duane and Lola Hagadone’s annual Thanksgiving weekend gift to the community, a fireworks spectacular.

What goes into that gift is part science and part artistry, explained Pyro Spectacular regional director Rich Vaughan.

Vaughan said Wednesday that around 4,700 shots aboard two barges will launch skyward tonight. Workers began to set up the shells on Saturday and finished on Wednesday, covering each of them with foil to protect them from the elements. They set up the shells on each barge as mirror images of each other in order to add artistic value and symmetry to the show, Vaughan said.

Hagadone Marine Group president Craig Brosenne has worked on the show for 20 years now. He said the goal is to shoot off all of the fireworks in eight or nine minutes. After standing outside for an hour or more, many onlookers are cold, he said. Closing out their day with a fast and furious fireworks display makes for quite a spectacular experience, Brosenne said.

Duane Hagadone really enjoys the show and is intimately involved in selecting the fireworks, he added. Brosenne said Hagadone added many more 5- and 6-inch shells to make this year’s event even more special.

Each shot flies out of a mortar tube made of metal, high density polyethylene, or fiberglass. Vaughan said the industry first transitioned from metal to HDPE, and more recently to fiberglass, for safety and cost reasons. Each shell travels upward an average of 100 feet per inch of shell, he said. Once at its appropriate height, the shell will create a display up to 450 feet wide.

The timing is coordinated by Vaughan, who choreographed the show and maintains radio contact with workers aboard each barge. Those aboard the barge fire the shots using an electric firing panel. Vaughan and Brosenne said they tried a computer-based firing system a few years ago but prefer the electric firing system.

Workers wear lifejackets and their barges are attached to tugboats. The crowds are at a safe distance from the pyrotechnics that launch from the lake. For more than a decade, a large array of fireworks has also launched from the boardwalk, which Vaughan said is also a safe distance from the crowds.

The pyrotechnic industry averages 2 percent duds per show, Vaughan said. After each show has finished and the shells are allowed a cooling period, workers manually inspect each dud, disconnect them, shunt the wires, box them, and return them to the office to determine why they didn’t fire as planned, Vaughan said.

Vaughan was a young man in 1984 when the Olympic torch passed through Wenatchee, Wash., en route to the Summer Games in Los Angeles. He got himself a job on a fireworks show to celebrate the occasion, and never quit trying to make crowds smile.

Pyrotechnics is a labor of love.

“You can’t be in it for the money,” he said.

He also said the public generally doesn’t grasp just how much labor goes into a fireworks show. Workers preparing for a Fourth of July show pour their hearts out under a blazing sun. This week, they battled cold, wet conditions.

Brosenne pointed out that Hagadone’s post-Thanksgiving Day show is rare because there aren’t many such shows at this time of year. Vaughan said it’s one of the favorite shows he and his workers put on during their yearly circuit across the Northwest.