OC ‘Pyros’ Gear up for July 4 Fireworks Show

Teams of ‘pyros’ ― the industry term for the fireworks pros who set up and perform the Independence Day pyrotechnics all over the country ― deployed throughout Orange County Wednesday to start setting up for July 4 firework shows. 

They spent their day arranging hundreds of mortar tubes to fire off thousands of shells and getting the “all clear” from the Orange County deputy fire marshals making their rounds.

Fireworks America contracts with San Clemente and Laguna Niguel. Their operation is typical of other contractors who aim to light up the night Thursday.

The San Clemente Pier’s crew uses wooden racks to hold the mortars in place, said show operator Frances Raven Marquez. She explained that each shell was wired to a computerized control panel with a triggered joystick-like hand detonator called a “pickle.”

Marquez said the pyros and the disc jockeys operating the music are in constant radio contact and there’s a computer program that times the show along with the music.

But it will be Marquez herself who manually detonates the fireworks that accompany “Star Spangled Banner” during the show’s finale.

“In our version, the song goes ‘and the rockets’ red glare; FIRE, FIRE, FIRE, FIRE’” she said.

Debbie Ludwig will be handling the controls for the Laguna Niguel Regional Park show. This week, she oversaw her crew set up the hundreds of mortars that will fire off more than 1,300 shells in a few hundred different combinations of shapes and colors over the Sulphur Creek Reservoir.

In Laguna, workers set up wooden troughs that will hold the mortar tubes -- the troughs are set up on the lake’s bank and will be filled with sand to hold the tubes steady.

Ludwig and her crew started assembling their apparatus Wednesday morning, but they keep the explosives locked up in their truck until the Fourth.

“We can’t bring out any of the product until tomorrow at 10:30 a.m.” she said.

Each of the shows will be about 20 minutes, operators said.