A big kaboom creates a big job

Once a year, our eyes collectively gaze into the sky. 

It’s the night when we gather in the empty parking lot beside Chelsea Antiques to hear booming sounds echo and watch as fire erupts 600 feet into the air above the Chelsea Water Tower. 

Then all of a sudden, dozens of them rocket skyward in sync exploding into golden willows, technicolor rings and silver smiley faces. Each blast announces another shape about to unfold. 

On the Fourth of July the skies above City of Chelsea, Greystone Country Club, Oak Mountain State Park and American Village come aglow — thanks to the work of Pyro Productions Inc.

Founder, CEO and president Deborah Neu and her team serve the entire state of Alabama putting on about 170 firework shows a year. Their list of productions ranges everywhere from Chelsea’s Big Kaboom to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and they do it all with a 100 percent national safety record. 

“There are a couple different factors to consider when shooting fireworks on these shows,” Neu said. “We need room, and we need a lot of room. So according to how big a show is how big an area we need.”

Neu has been in the business for 20 years, and she said she is one of — if not the only — woman who owns and operates her own firework production company. 

When putting together a firework show, Neu said she starts by talking to the sponsor to determine what kind of show it is looking for and what kind of venue Pyro Productions will be working with. Both the location of the audience and where they will shoot the fireworks from are important. 

Local authorities, such as the fire and police departments, have to be contacted to coordinate safety plans and crowd control to ensure a safe show for everyone involved.

“Then we actually start creating the show,” Neu said. “We individually go in and select each shell and what we want to put into the show. Once we get the show and shells picked out, we get a pull sheet put together.” 

The show is created on a software program so designers can look at the thousands of products Neu has in inventory such as the different calibers, shells and colors of the fireworks. They can also choreograph the firework show to go along with music provided by the sponsor or custom created for them. 

“We try to put a happy face in every show we shoot because a lot of the times the kids—even the parents as well— just love a big smiley face up in the air,” Neu said. “The first time I saw those it made me happy, and I thought ‘You know, if that makes me happy and I have seen tens of thousands of firework shells, every show needs these.’”

Neu was actually the first firework company to bring smiley faces to Alabama. They are patterned shells that break apart into a certain shape — in this case a smiley face.  

Next they must decide whether the fireworks should be shot off electronically or by hand. For Chelsea’s Big Kaboom, Neu said they do the opening and the finale electronically for safety reasons, and they light the body of the show by hand. 

“The reason why we do that is it allows us to spread out the finale and give a smoother pace without the guys having to hand-fire because it isn’t as safe,” Neu said. “They are launching so many shells at the same time and they are doing it in a very short amount of time.”

To shoot the fireworks electronically, they insert an electric igniter into the shell once it is pulled from storage for any given show. The igniter is then hooked to a module that is also hooked up to a firing board. Neu said the firing board is attached to batteries and resembles a fancy version of a nail, or circuit board from science class. 

Once the fireworks are all set up it’s show time, but they can’t shoot off any shells before the show. 

“The one thing in this business is you don’t get a practice run,” Neu said. “You get one shot. There is no dress rehearsal. Do they have a plan? Absolutely.”  

After the fireworks finish, Neu said they check in to make sure the sponsors are happy and no brush fires stared. Then they simply wait 15 minutes, break down, clean up and prepare for tomorrow’s show.