BURLINGTON — John Fischer dug ditches on his first day of training to become a pyrotechnician.

Now, more than 30 years later, he’s in charge of some of the largest fireworks shows in Western Washington.

On lazy summer days when community members gather at parks and lakesides for Fourth of July festivities, Fischer is busy putting the bang into Independence Day. He owns Port Gardner Fireworks and produces dozens of shows each year.

During setup for Burlington’s Berry Dairy Days last month, Fischer and his nephew, Mike Fischer, arranged row upon row of black mortar tubes in the afternoon.

That night, during the show, Fischer shot shells high into the air, where they burst into patterns that ancient Chinese fireworks makers would say resembled flowers: colorful chrysanthemums, peonies and dahlias.

More than 250 shells were fired in just 20 minutes, but setting up the display took hours. Most of the tubes were braced in homemade racks — holding five or six shells each — that were nailed together and reinforced with plywood and metal strips to brace them upright against the impact of the soaring mortars.

Mike Fischer, 30, has been around professional fireworks almost all his life. He said he was pretty nervous the first time he lit a 6-inch shell when he was 18 years old.

“It’s just because you’re next to something that’s going to explode,” he said as he shoved one row of mortar tubes against another. “I don’t see it as a lot of fun. I just help out.”
Mike Fischer talked about the adrenaline rush he gets from setting off the 6-inch shells.

“You can probably compare it to something like cliff jumping,” he said. “There’s always the danger of something happening.”

Much has been done to remove that danger. John Fischer built his mortar tubes from high-density polyethylene, which is used for high-pressure water pipes and natural gas lines.

The tubes absorb the heat and shock of the blast, and can focus a misfired shell’s blast out the ends and keep it away from the pyrotechnician.

John Fischer created the business with his brother, Dan, some 30 years ago after working with another fireworks company for about five years. During the week, Fischer works in a quality control laboratory for Boeing.

It took the Fischers a while to find land remote enough to construct a magazine — a safe building in which to store the fireworks — in northern Snohomish County. Their business has remained successful through the years despite strict regulations passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that caused some fireworks businesses to go under, Fischer said.

Part of the problem for pyrotechnic businesses is that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms don’t enforce regulations consistently, Fischer said.

“One agent might come out and say ‘that’s fine,’ another might come out a few months later and say ‘that’s a violation,’” he said. “Before they would give you a list of corrections you’d have to make. Now instead of corrections, everything’s a violation. ... Instead of going after the real bad guys, they’re harassing the fireworks companies.”

Randall Cook is the manager for Salish Fireworks, which produced the other half of the display for the city of Burlington’s show.

Cook described the fireworks he sets off as “low-level pyrotechnics.” The two companies have been putting on the show together for more than 10 years.

“We can put a show together that the city can afford,” said Cook, 42.

A bright smile lit up Cook’s face as he described why he loves his job.

“We get a kick out of people’s reaction and making people happy,” he said. “Every year we’re like Santa Claus.”

Much of the preshow setup revolves around safety for the pyrotechnicians and the spectators. An area at Skagit River Park was roped off to keep the audience from getting too close. Fuses for Fischer’s mortars are draped over one side of the racks and taped down to allow pyrotechnicians to light them rapidly, one after the other.

For mortars longer than 6 inches, John Fischer said he’s required to bury the tubes in the ground or submerge them in deep boxes of sand.

That’s how he prepares for the annual Fourth of July show in Bellingham, called Blast Over Bellingham Bay, that he’s produced for 20 years. Some of the shells are 16 inches across and soar more than 1,600 feet into the air.

While Fischer lights the shells manually for a show the size of the Berry Dairy Days, he uses an electronic firing panel for the Bellingham show. He stays 20 feet away from the mortars and is sheltered from potential malfunctions by a concrete barrier.

There is no barrier between the pyrotechnician and the mortar tubes at Berry Dairy Days. Instead, the Fischers light the rows of 3- and 6-inch mortars by hand with a device that looks like a signal flare while moving down the row of mortar tubes on their knees.

To light the mortars, the pyrotechnician holds a signal flare to a slow-burning section of fuse. But once that section is burned out, the flame rushes through a faster-burning fuse about 40 feet per second, Fischer said. The firing charge ignites and, if all goes as planned, the mortar fires hundreds of feet into the air.

The concussion from the blast isn’t too bad, Fischer said, especially if you’re hunkered down below the level of the mortar tubes.

This is the first year Fischer has used the 6-inch shells for Berry Dairy Days. Some come in patterns: hearts, stars, happy faces and hourglasses.

“People loved them,” he said. “(The fireworks) had a real big spread on them and they wanted us to bring them back again.”