Fireworks Crews Have a Blast

The man standing in front of the Rose Bowl gestured in the air with two well-tanned hands, then toward a group of workers putting the final touches on today’s Fourth of July extravaganza in Pasadena, and tried to explain what made a good fireworks show.

“I want you to see the whole theater,” said Jim Souza, whose khaki shorts and black polo shirt made him look more like a weekend golfer than the pyrotechnic entertainer he is. “I’m trying to create effects.”

Like an artist attempting to envision his subject before he painted it, Souza moved his hands apart, creating a frame. “I’m creating this giant picture,” he said. “I want to change the moods: Happiness. Pride. Fun. Excitement. Anticipation.”

For anyone who makes fireworks his field, the Fourth of July is the pinnacle of a long year’s worth of work. For Souza, the day engenders a rare combination of childlike glee and adult angst.

His family-run Rialto company, Pyro Spectaculars, will oversee more than 400 fireworks shows today from Honolulu to Boston. The Rose Bowl show, Southern California’s largest, is part of the city’s Americafest, which includes carnival rides, performances by pop stars and the Flying Elvi.

To prepare, Souza has spent a year combing the globe for the latest, most awe-inspiring incendiary devices he can find. His crew of 20 -- self-described “pyro-maniacs” on holiday from their regular lives as college students, accountants, attorneys and retirees -- has spent the last four days mounting extravagant set pieces inside the bowl, installing mortars to fire shells hundreds of feet in the air and road-testing a 30-minute show timed precisely to music.

Ask why they do it, and they say: It’s the combination of nerves, adrenaline and the rush you get when a show goes off without a hitch, when the sky is streaked with smoke and the air smells like sulfur. Success is measured in the audience’s reaction. If people are stomping their feet to the music or if there are tears in their eyes, Souza and his crew know they have them where they want them.

The show is, as always, a tribute to Americana -- schmaltzy perhaps, but full of patriotic verve. Souza says it’s a “pyro musical journey” using fireworks and classic American tunes to pay tribute to the nation’s heroes. More than 5,000 fireworks will be set off during the show, launched from 1,100 “addresses” -- individual sites in the parlance of Souza and his workers.

On Saturday, with a little less than 36 hours to show time, what Souza called “organized chaos” seemed to reign. One group of workers huddled on the field of the Rose Bowl, using string and wire to rope together the individual lattices that held the set pieces aloft. Set pieces -- elaborate “firework pictures” of, this year, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, a page from the Constitution and the American flag -- are enormous, as big as 30 feet by 20 feet, and will light up for a minute at most.

Another group worked outside the bowl, rigging the shells and laying computer wire so the fireworks could be set off from a central location.

“Four days’ worth of labor, and it’s all over in 30 minutes,” said Stephen Yoss of Claremont. The 19-year-old, a student at Loyola Marymount University, was there with his dad, also named Stephen Yoss. They were one of two father-son teams helping to assemble the show.

Yoss the elder began working for Pyro Spectaculars as the company’s accountant and then became one of its rigs-men. When he started, “All I knew about fireworks was Fourth of July sparkler stuff,” he said.

Now the Yoss men are veterans of many shows, including the Macy’s Fourth of July presentation in New York, said to be the biggest fireworks display in the country. They speak in the easy jargon of the trade, singing the praises of roman candles, describing the parts of a set piece and rattling off what it takes to rig rainbow-shaped explosions.

As they worked, Antonio J. Bestard watched over the group with a hawk’s eye. The show’s designated licensed firework technician, Bestard had been up since dawn. He had already made a run to a hardware store for pulleys and rope, and was helping everyone stay on schedule. “We’ve got to get these off the floor by 1:30,” he reminded those working on the set pieces.

In his other life, Bestard is a criminal defense lawyer. But here, he is just Tony, an affable guy who got involved in fireworks a decade ago as a way to gain entry to soccer’s World Cup finals and now does shows in four states. Bestard, Souza said, has “nerves of steel. He comes out here to relieve stress.”

The two men have known each other since they began attending the University of Portland 34 years ago. It’s clear from their interaction that they can almost read each other’s minds. “I do it strictly for fun,” Bestard said. “My whole family is here.”

Crew members plan to work until noon today, and then get a few hours of rest before the show. Souza hopes all of their hard work means an error margin of less than 1%. The things that go wrong, he said, “are usually electrical; something hooked up wrong, or you blow off a wire.”

Tonight, as darkness descends in Pasadena and 9 p.m. approaches, Souza will begin the pre-show check. Sitting at the master control panel on the Rose Bowl field, he will communicate via walkie-talkie with Bestard and others.

He will begin sending digital packets of information to the mechanisms that will fire the special effects. After all of them are in sync, he will signal a one-minute countdown. Those 60 seconds, Souza said, are “extremely tense.”

If all goes right, the narration of the program will begin. Music will cue. Above the bowl, small fireworks will soar and ignite the sky: a peony from Canada, a Chinese rose, a Japanese willow.

A massive, show-stopping 16-inch shell -- nicknamed the Granddaddy -- will streak 1,500 feet into the air and explode.

Then, Souza said, “it’s off. And it’s all happy after that.”