Havre fireworks show: Behind the scenes

The Havre Jaycees have been putting on a fireworkss show for more than 40 years and a lot goes into planning one out.

Jason Murri is in charge of the fireworks show every year and it's something he always wanted to do. He began in 2002 and does about three shows a year around the state.

"It was just interest," Murri said. "If you wanted to do the fireworkss, you joined the Jaycees."

All fireworkss are set off electronically, Murri said. Through the use of wires connected to a module, from which a master cable runs to a control box at a safe distance away from the fireworkss, an electric match is triggered and ignites a fuse in the fireworks apparatus.

"There's basically just 45 switches," Murri said. "When I trigger a switch, it sparks whatever match is connect to that switch."

The shells that get launched into the air range in size and shape. The smallest shell shot at the fireworks show was a 3-inch shell. The biggest was a 12-inch shell set up in the biggest mortar in the arena. It weighed about 25 pounds.

"You'll know this one when it goes off," Murri said. It was scheduled set off right before the finale, per Murri's choreography of explosions.

"I like to be able to see each of the big shells individually,"  he said. "There's so much going on during the finale so to me, they need to be seen on their own and appreciated."

The biggest shells in the finale were two eight-pound shells. He said that there are a lot of "gold willows," which look like the limbs of a willow tree, at the end so that the sky fills at the end. Generally, it's the smaller ones that get sent up during the finale, which is around one minute long. The entire show was supposed to last around 12 minutes and 6 seconds.

"It's a good pace, I think," Murri said. "It allows something to be in the air at all times. To not get boring and not have pauses and breaks and stuff like that."

There were 572 shells and 72 cakes set up at the Hill County Fairgrounds Saturday. Cakes are a package of multiple fireworkss, like Roman candles or smaller shells.

This year, the Fourth of July fireworks celebration was interrupted and postponed by the severe thunderstorm that night. Many of the shells and cakes were damaged and unusable. The fireworks show went on the day after, July 5, but it was not the fireworks show Murri had planned.

Before the storm put a damper on things, it was going to be the biggest show the Jaycees has ever done.

Murri is in charge of the entire show, including the choreography of what gets set off at which time.

"It's just trying to figure out how to group the effects and find stuff that works together," Murri said.

He uses a computer program to help him with the choreography, to make sure the show looks the way he wants it to. Each shell has a certain amount of time between launch and shell-burst.

The wooden racks, which Murri constructed and assembled himself, are angled to create some variety in where the fireworkss are shot. He said he does a few tricks like this to keep the show from looking uniform.

Once the racks are set up, mortars are placed inside them. The mortars are made from fiberglass and polyethylene tubes of various diameters with a wooden plug in one end. The shell, with the electric match connecting it to the control module by a wire, is placed inside the tube.

From start to finish, Murri spends about 50 to 60 hours on each show he puts on. That includes the time he spends scripting the show, labeling everything, putting electric matches on all the shells, and setting up the apparatus.

"It's just a love," Murri said. "It started out as a hobby and it's grown from there. Sometimes I wonder why. It's like you're sweating your butt off, you're hot and you're miserable. But when that first shell fires, it's all worth it. And when that last shell fires and you hear everyone cheering and yelling and horns honking, it makes it all worth it. It's a lot of work for 12 minutes of fun."

The anatomy of a firework

The type of firework in the mortar varies. Murri has had experience with the actual creating of the firework shells.

Each aerial firework is made up of a container, "stars," a bursting charge and fuse and at the base of the firework is a lifting charge that shoots it up the container when ignited. The electric match ignites the base lifting charge, which in turn lights the fuse to the firework. The fuse burns down to the bursting charge, which explodes the container, releasing the "stars."

"A common misconception is that these are rockets," Murri said. "Because people see some of the shells will have a tail that just sparkles in the air. These are not rockets; these are shells."

The composition and placement of the "stars" in the container decide what the visual effect will be. The explosion of the bursting charge ignites the stars, which spark as they burn.

If the stars are placed in a circle around the bursting charge, it will explode into a circle in the sky. Depending on where the stars are placed, many shapes can be made.

The color depends on the chemical compound in the stars:

• Red - strontium and lithium salts

• Orange - calcium salts

• Gold - incandescence of iron with carbon, charcoal or lampblack

• Yellow - sodium compounds

• Electric White - white-hot metal such as magnesium or aluminum

• Green - barium compounds

• Blue - copper compounds

• Purple - a mixture of strontium and copper compounds

• Silver - burning aluminum, titanium or magnesium.