Fire officials battle bill that would OK consumer fireworks (link)
Ok, sounds like a typical news story on a proposal to allow consumer fireworks in a state...
Um...what? It is quite expected to have fire officials argue about this and a debate about legalizing consumer fireworks is totally appropriate, especially in a dry state like Arizona. But why would anyone (Crosbie included) think it was a good idea to trot Crosbie out to argue against it? What happened to him was unfortunate and clearly very painful, but it was his own damn fault and has no bearing on the issue. Unless his argument is "I am living proof that we are too stupid to use fireworks according to directions," then he should stay away from this debate.After the series of explosions and after he finally forced his way out of the car, Matt Crosbie looked down and saw the skin peeling from his arms.
Flashes of smoke, flames and burned flesh followed just moments after Crosbie tried to launch mortar-like fireworks out the window of a moving car days before his high school graduation. One of the explosives he fired from a cardboard tube bounced back into the vehicle, igniting more fireworks and leaving the car engulfed in fire.
...
Crosbie, who recently joined firefighters recently to speak out against the bill, said he was inspired to serve as a burn-victim advocate after he rehabbed.
"I've had 30 surgeries, plenty of skin grafts," said Crosbie, now 23. "I guess you could say I'm scarred for life because of this."
Copyrights and trademarks are often "loosely" interpreted on fireworks labels and usually nothing happens, but I guess somebody at Kelloggs took issue with Wolverine's Snap! Crackle! Boom! cake and requested it be changed... I don't know the details, but I don't think anything too dramatic happened, so it is good for a laugh.
The old label and name can be seen here, the cake is being renamed "Warning!" with the new label on the left. Performance should be the same, which is good because I really like this cake (video here). The page the image and text are from is here.
In other news, Rod and I went down to Portland to present to the event committee for the Renn Fayre show and everything is on track.
I also placed on order with Spirit of 76 for some fireworks. Quite a few of the items aren't in stock, so we'll see what gets in before they ship. I ordered these items (splitting some cases):
200g:
Night Vision (BP)
Clipper (BP)
500g:
Reach for the Sky (Winda)
Hot Wire (BP)
The New Hotness (BP)
Spicy Hot (Firehawk)
Jail Bait (Winda)
Cyborg Duel (Cannon)
The Matador (Cannon)
I'm also splittings cases of Grand Chariot (Cannon) and Strong Man (Winda), and hopefully getting a case of Magnum Power (Winda). Should make a nice little pile! I'll shoot some at the group shoot, others will be saved for my own uses, and possibly even for next year's Renn Fayre show, how is that for planning ahead?
While working at the magazines, Rod and I also did a couple tests on fences as safety barriers. We've had a couple of cakes that tipped (even when glued to a board) or blew out, so in the interest of safety we wanted to look at ways to reduce this danger. At the last Sumner show we used a plywood box, but it was a pain to put together, required a lot of heavy material, and just wasn't that practical. We thought about possible alternatives and decided to look at fences that could be pounded into the group and rolled up when we were done, so we needed to test it and see how well it would actually work.
We looked around Home Depot and got a 100' roll of silt fence with stakes attached, and another roll of plastic fencing material that looked like plastic chicken wire. The silt fence I'm used to seeing has metal wire and this didn't, but we figured we'd see what happened. The material is a fairly thin woven plastic stapled to stakes every ten feet. The other fence came in a 25' roll and was flexible plastic with openings of about 1/2".
For the first test we used a 200g cake, Golden Willows (not pictured). It was tipped flat to the ground and then supported with stakes on the back and sides. The fence was pounded in the ground in a square all around it, with the cake 4-5 feet from the fence. I lit the cake and it contained the first couple shots, but then flipped itself upright and fired the rest of the shots straight up! The one time you want a cake shooting sideways and it doesn't... I didn't get the first shots on video, so I won't bother posting it. The damaged was limited to a few pretty small holes that didn't show up very well in the picture.
The second test was the one pictured above, fired at the same side of the fence that had already been hit a few times by the 200g cake. A 500g Dahlias & Bouquets cake was tipped sideways, then firmly braced. We also added the extra stake shown above because we felt ten feet was too far between stakes and the fencing sagged quite a bit. I didn't really have high hopes for this fence, especially because it starts out with five mines that I figured would burn through it. The mines were actually contained pretty well and while several of the shell inserts did get through, it also contained a fair number of them. The ones that did get through didn't seem to get as far as they would have if they were unobstructed. The cake certainly made some holes (image right), but I was impressed with how it held up overall.
For the next test we used another Dahlias & Bouquets with the green plastic fencing. This fencing looked pretty sturdy and I expected it would do a better job of stopping the shells than the silt fence, although with the larger openings I didn't think it would do much to stop the mines.
While the most important safety factor is always distance, you can meet with 70' or even 100' per inch distance rules and still have something go wrong. A fence like this doesn't solve all the problems, but it can help significantly. It won't stop shots at a high enough angle, but it will keep stray shots from going directly towards anything (related to that, be sure that angled cakes have enough room to clear the fence).
The video of both tests is below, a direct link to a higher quality video can be found in my PyroU gallery here.
I took a trip with Rod today down to the Wolverine magazines in order to pull product for my upcoming Renn Fayre show, as well as get some other stuff down there and do a little test (more on that in a post up soon).
I was worried about everything being in stock because things are a bit low, but was able to find almost everything I had scripted. The only things missing were one Big City Lights (used mainly as filler and replaced with a Heavenly Delight) and two Platinum Pro 8's. I might find some elsewhere, otherwise they will be replaced with a couple Falling Water Chutes and Blue Tie with Brocade Mine (hardly equal, but I don't have too many gold/blue items to choose from for this segment of the show).
I also added a couple things, the show is never done! I got two more High and Mighty to add more big breaks to the finale, as well as a United Pyro shell kit with 48 single/double/triple break shells called Mega Pyro Pro, which I plan on quickmatching for a finale barrage.
On Thursday Rod and I are going down the Portland for a meeting with the event organizers, shouldn't be too eventful, but it will take care of some necessary business.
