Dimock's Pyro Page
What's on the Pyro Page?
One of my main interests is Pyrotechnics. I am licensed as an
explosives manufacturer and user by both the
BATF
and the New York State Department of Labor. I am a member of the
Pyrotechnics
Guild International, the Finger Lakes Pyrotechnic Association,
the
Crackerjacks
, and I shoot shows professionally for
Young Explosives
of Rochester, New York. I also try to get to the
PGI
convention every year.
Fireworks Safety
Absolutely the most important consideration for anyone who loves
pyro is safety. It is my fervent wish that all pyro lovers in the
world will live their lives to their normal span, and with all of
their body parts intact. Assuring this means paying a great deal of
attention to safety! If you are planning to get involved with pyro at
a hands-on level, make sure you know what you are doing. There are
far too many news stories of young (and older) people getting hurt
while working with energetic substances. Please read up thoroughly on
safety before attempting to make any pyrotechnic substances yourself,
and make sure that you are operating within your local laws.
I try to keep this list of pyro links reasonably comprehensive,
with a few exceptions. I do not list links to archives of all of the
unbelievable (and dangerous) garbage such as the Jolly Roger
Cookbook, The Big Book Of Mischief, etc.. These documents are filled
with erroneous and extremely dangerous information. Trying to follow
their instructions can leave you seriously hurt or dead!!
Contents:
Here are a some of the many places in the web for pyro
information:
General sources:
Conventions and Symposia:
Federal Regulatory Agencies Directly
Effecting Pyrotechnics:
Foreign, State and Local Legal
Information
- Canada has an organization called
the Canadian
Explosives Research Laboratory which does very useful research
in the area of display pyro.
- Alaska Statutes, Title 18,
Chapter
72, contains the Alaska fireworks laws, along with the
Administrative Code, Title 13,
Chapter
51.
- Arizona Statutes, Title 35,
Chapters
1601,
1602,
1603,
1604,
1605,
1606,
1607,
and
1608
contain the Arizona fireworks laws.
- The
California State Fire works Laws are on line, along
with the
Fire Marshall's Regulations.
- If you're from Colorado, the
State Fireworks Laws are on line - Search the statutes for the word Fireworks. They also have a page of
Questions
and Answers.
- Florida
fireworks
laws are on-line.
- A really bad law was proposed in Florida in both the
House and the
Senate.
It was not passed.
- Tom Smith has posted a very interesting analysis of the state of fireworks
regulation in
Great Britain.
- Indiana Code, Title 22, Article 11,
Chapter
14, contains the Indiana fireworks laws.
- Here's the Minnesota
Statutes relating to fireworks.
- The New Jersey fireworks laws are
in
Title
21.
- The Rhode Island fireworks laws are
in
Chapter
23-28.11.
- Texas Administrative Code, Title
37,
Part XIII, contains
the Texas fireworks laws in Chapter 591, which seems to be missing.....
- Here's a site with the
Texas
Insurance Code relating to fireworks.
- The Revised Code of Washington,
Title 70,
Chapter
77, contains the Washington State Fireworks laws.
-
The Washington,
Fireworks Stand regulations are also on line.
-
A jurisdiction by jurisdiction list of where fireworks are
restricted or banned in Washington state.
- The city of
Halifax
are total spoilsports when it comes to fire crackers. They blame
their nervousness about things that go boom on
The
Halifax Explosion, but that's like banning fans because you
once had a hurricane....
- Jonesboro, Arkansas has their
municipal code
on-line. The fireworks laws are chapter 7.36.
- Here's a page telling you how to get a
fireworks permit in
North
Bay, Ontario, along with the table of fines for fireworks
violations.
- Fireworks
Policy.
- The University of California, Irvine
Campus,
says
no too.
- A
Study of Fireworks in Hawai'i identifies some of the problems
inherent in trying to control fireworks use.
- A
legal
case study discussing the immunity from liability of
municipalities for accidents during fireworks shows.
Getting Legal
- Pyrotechnics as a hobby has some serious legal pitfalls. But
it is possible in many states to get legal. The
Getting Legal web site contains
information on the process of getting legal at the Federal level
and at the state level in New York State.
Fireworks Safety Tips
Some Pyro Pictures and Movies:
- William George Armstrong got his name
attached to Armstrongs Mixture, one of the most dangerous
pyrotechnic compositions known. This French site has his
picture.
- Artbeats sell broadcast quality video
clips. Their two new collections are
ReelFire
1 and ReelExplosions 1. Check out the demo called
Thundering
Chrysanthemum!
- Some of my own pictures from the
1995 and
1996 PGI Conventions.
- Some pictures of the
Hudson's
Fireworks.
- This calendar of Japanese shows for 1994 has an interesting
drawing
of two shells.
- Xzark Designs has a neat image in their
gallery of samples based on a
Circus firecracker
label.
- James Campbell is an Edinburgh
photographer who features fireworks pictures in his
Gallery.
- In it's quest to have the biggest phallic
symbol in the world, Las Vegas built the Stratosphere Tower. Of
course the grand opening had
fireworks!
- A very nice picture of
a red
to silver streamer shell.
- Nine3 (whoever
they are) has a site with some fireworks pictures.
- Here's an interesting one - a series of
pictures of
David
Hall, a performer whose performances involve pyrotechnics
strapped to his body!
- This Japanese page, with the somewhat cryptic title
"Only
girls and fireworks were the gift from the Summer" has
pictures of hand held fireworks.
- If you want REALLY BIG scale fireworks, check out this picture
of the
Fireworks
Nebula.
- The movie
Red
Firecracker, Green Firecracker has some tantalizing scenes of
fireworks manufacture in China at some unspecified point in time.
Also lots of fireworks!
- Alan Simmons sells
fire
videos. They're aimed at firefighters, but some were shot on
the 4th and have fireworks in them.
- If you're looking for
Pyro
Screensavers, this place has several to choose from! They also
have more ads per page than anyplace I've ever seen.
- Jackie Whedbee
has a great web site with fireworks phography ,
illustrations, poetry, etc., incloding some erotic fireworks photos!!
Information on photographing
pyrotechnics:
Computer generated pyrotechnics:
Some Pyro Songs and Stories:
A little pyro history:
Club home pages:
Personal pyro pages:
For Italian speakers:
- Here's an
Italian
pyrotechnics page.
For German speakers:
For Swedish speakers:
- Mc-Boden
is a swedish motorcycle shop who also supplies pyrotechnics to the
Swedish market (so I'm told!).
For French speakers:
For Spanish speakers:
- The
Fallas de
Valencia 97 home page. This is quite a festival, with lots of
fireworks. This site has sound and video clips. There is also a page for
Fallas 99.
For Japanese speakers:
Show home pages:
- The Epcot Center show is called
IllumiNations.
- Main Events International lists a couple
of fireworks shows in
North Texas.
- Las Vegas has discovered that people like
to watch buildings blow up, and they seem to be making a regular
New Years Eve event out of it. Check out this site for coverage of
the 1996
Hacienda
implosion. Grucci did the coordinated fireworks.
- Portland, Oregon has a fireworks show
to kick off their
Portland
Rose Festival.
- The
Burning Man is a
major happening which includes a lot of pyro. Wired magazine's
on-line version did a
story
on the '95 Burning Man.
- Les
Grands feux Loto-Quebéc has put up a very handsome,
multi-page site. This sounds like a series of shows worth seeing!
- John Sergneri has put up a description of the
La Merce 95
show in Barcelona. Pictures, too!
- Rhythm & Booms home page. This is a page devoted to one
fireworks show!
- Santa Fe, NM has a festal every year the weekend after Labor
Day called the Fiesta de Santa Fe, which culminates in the burning
of
Zozobra
to the accompaniment of fireworks.
- An article (first published in Wired
) about the infamous, by invitation only,
Desert
Blast, and another story about the
Blast
in a UFO fanciers newsletter. If you want to be invited, try
filling out the form at the
Desert Blast
home page.
- Survival
Research Labs does some rather extreme performance art
involving many pyro effects. A group called
Construct has
a lot of pictures of SRL on the net.
- The
Coastside Fireworks
Committee puts on a show each year.
Pyrotechnic Literature:
Pyrotechnic Supplies:
- SkyLighter,
my favorite pyro supplier, has a great web site! The entire
catalog is on-line (including new items not listed in the current
printed catalog), and Harry accepts E-mail orders from established
customers.
- A good balance is one of the pyro's most
used tools. Precision Weighing
Balances has an amazing selection of balances at excellent
prices.
- Birket
Engineering makes the fire control systems for a lot of those
incredible theme park attractions. They also have an interesting
product called the
Personal
Pyro Controller.
- You know those water fire extiguishers the code reqires? You can get them from
Saulsbury
Fire Equipment. You can also get a firemans helmet there for
protected shooting. It's what I wear!
- The
Elephant
Brand Black Powder home page.
- ElectroStatics
sells systems to control static electricity and the related
contamintaion.
- FireFox
Enterprises is a major supplier of pyro and rocketry supplies.
- Lakeland
Industries has some nice safety gear for shooting.
- Iowa
Pyro Supply is a newer supplier and is still growing.
- For information on one our most important
materials, how about the
Goex Black
Powder home page!
-
PrecociousPyrotechnics
is a top rate supplier from Minnesota - the president is a PGII Grand Master!.
- Pyrotechnics Management, Inc. makes the
FireOne
computerized firing system.
-
Pyro Safety Co, operated by Tom Perigrin,
sells firing panels and low power FM transmitters, with
more products on the drawing board.
- Pyrotek
is also the name of a special effects supplier in Canada!
- Rabbat
Productions sells fake fireworks for use where the real thing
can't.
- The
Supply Cache sells safety gear that can be used when shooting
fireworks.
- Tombstone
Productions sells pyro special effects gear.
- Theatre
Effects has quite an extensive line of special effects
products.
-
Sieves are an essential part of the fireworkers tool set.
Universal
Wire Cloth makes beautiful, very accurate, and quite expensive
sieves.
- Bob
Weaver publishes an insanely great guide to Class C fireworks!
- Sam
Woodward makes what appear to be some very good fire control
panels in Great Britain.
Fireworks Vendors (Displays and Class
B):
Fireworks Vendors (Class C):
And here are a couple of interesting,
if rather silly, pages:
Pages that are hostile to fireworks:
Clueless in Cyberspace - Pages that are
hopelessly out of date:
- The cities of Setagaya-ku and
Kawasaki-city, which are opposite each other across the Tamagawa
river, jointly shoot the Futago-Tamagawa fireworks show. Although
the show does not have a page (that I know of), Nihon Sun
Microsystems will be broadcasting the show
live
on the Internet.
Please send comments and new links I should add to
info@pyropage.com.
This page last updated July 19,1999