Firework Safety, Training is the Key

When 1^st Galaxy first began, or should I say when my Father and I first began back in 1985; attitudes to Health & Safety were considerably different, particularly when you consider that I was just Nine years old…..would I let my son on a Fireworks site at that age ?? mmmhhh difficult one I was OK, but knowing what I know I probably wouldn’t. In fact that is academic really as we are now told we cannot take anyone who is under 18yrs of age onto a commercial Display Site.

Interestingly it’s the “Claim Culture” which has been brought about by the Health & Safety act that is the root cause of the Health & Safety approach. Now I’m all up for Health & Safety and I will go onto that shortly but before I do just let me get one thing off my chest! Now as a slight anti authoritarian, (which lets face it under the current Labour Government is entirely what we are controlled by) I do have trouble with Government and Local Government sticking their nose into my business, consider for one moment that we (quote Jeremy Clarkson) have over 4000 Health & Safety Officers in this country and France has….wait for it…….NONE at all !! is this country safer than France ? I don’t know the answer but I would guess we’re not much different.

Now as I said I do believe in Health & Safety and I find it a double edged sword, mainly because I do believe in it yet I don’t believe in the policing of it, yet I suppose you can’t have one without the other. Back in the day when we rarely thought of Health & Safety we never had any serious incidents; however we did have some near misses at various Fireworks Displays. Ironically it’s been these near misses that have taught me what I know today, I have seen and been part of my fair share of mistakes, near misses and brown trouser moments, and its with this experience that we can pass of valuable information.

I’m a huge believer that you learn by your mistakes, and that goes for just about everything, in fact I would go as far as to say you can’t learn without making a few. Now the problem with that view and the use of Fireworks is mistakes can cause injury, serious injury and even death in the very worst cases. I do not want to have people working for me and “hope” they learn what I learnt and get away with it ! so in the past 6 or 7 years we have worked hard to improve, evolve and develop our approach to Health & Safety Training for Fireworks, their use & transportation & storage.

Back in the very late 90’s my Father and I were the team at 1^st Galaxy Fireworks we did it all, Displays, Retails, Kits etc and to put it mildly we were knackered and we decided to down size our displays business as we could not cope with the hours, added to that a nervousness about employing people and letting them loose with our beloved Fireworks Company. Well my Dad who is a great hero of mine said one day that we will only be able to grow if we get a team behind us and if we ensure that team are good, as your company is only as good as those who work for you!

Well with that in mind a small crew of possibilities we began training and passing on our experiences, we began documenting things and making small company policies. Well since then it has snowballed, we have members of our team involved right at the heart of the company and of course the team has grown. We have been fortunate enough to get some great people on the team and each of them has brought a different skill to the team which has helped enormously grow confidence, moral and a few years of good customer comments and limited incidents.

Added to this the BPA training program (which will be covered another time) we have created our own little Firework Display Operators School, which incidentally you can attend if your interested? please contact sam@1stgalaxy.co.uk

Hanabi, The Japanese & Fireworks

If you take the time to follow this link to you tube to see the awesome Japanese Fireworks displays I’m sure you will agree its amazing.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6VSktHzfS64

The show is quite slow to start and has a wonderful track that accompanies it and is typically Japanese in style, reminiscing of a karaoke bar in down town Tokyo. However for mood and grace I have to say I do like the music and would consider using something similar myself.

The sheer size and scale of the show is so impressive, the fireworks are spread over a wide area, a total dream for any firework designer as you can use (as they do) large effects over distance to create pattern and synchronicity which really gets the hairs on end. The first major chase sequence which is preceded by cross firing mines with coloured tops, closely followed by a chase from the centre out, perfectly timed with the music and really does follow the mood, tempo and volume.

The red and white strobe shells fired at width look great simply because its clear and intentional to treat the two colour separately and there is no mixing of colours in the centre.

The next sequence in the show sees two separate firing halves which swap round half way through, on each side there is a demonstration of the abilities of the firework factory as they show off the various Shell patterns and colours they have created, the other low firing half give some perspective on the size and drama of the shells next door!

The next part which slips in from underneath is one of my favourite, the modular units or groups of fanned single shots wipe from left to right in a pair, followed by a triplet and then a quadruple and then a great fanned sweep from one unit to another as the whole theme moves from left to right made up of five smaller sub modules. The timing is great and again marries up within the music track.

Following these modules is a whole barrage of small and very effective bombettes bursting with small green, red & purple stars, low level material fired at regular intervals over the site width. Then from no where gentle bursts of falling leaves suddenly appear and with it a woo and an ahh from the appreciative audience watching the show,

This is followed by a slower more repetitive sequence of single large shells fired in succession. Now this bit wasn’t for me really and my colleague commented in a similar way, however I did point out to him that as many of the Japanese specialist are building their own shells for them single large shells are a true art. And Its not for us to criticise as we do feel we are good at providing shows, but we are not the full company simply because we are not building from scratch with our own hands masterpieces like the guys from Japan!

Now the next section is great, varied coloured spots match both high and low, however it’s the part after this which left me laughing to myself in sheer awe of what they created. A large scale chase from right to left of mines followed in colour coordination by masses of shells. This is similar to a sequence we performed in the British Fireworks Championships, however not having the width made the difference as this show is….well amazing!

And the Finale…well what other words other than amazing, brilliant, awesome can be used…watch for yourself and leave some words for us to think about!

Firework Shipping Problems from China

2008 is the Olympic Games in China this year and this appears to be severely affecting Firework exports as various Shipping Bans have been put in place. In an effort to reduce the risk of bad news publicity during the games because of the likelihood of a Fireworks Manufacture accident the Chinese government have put out unofficial dates during which time Fireworks cannot be shipped around the country.

The irony is that in their effort to reduce negative worldwide media because of industrial accidents they have had one of the largest earthquakes on record which has hit the worldwide news.

Since mid 2007 there have been rumours that China would place restrictions on the movement of hazardous goods. There is a tendency in China to turn to kneejerk reactions in light of various factors, not least the eye of the world upon them. On many occasions in the past I have known whole provinces (the size of Wales) close entire industries over night due to an industrial accident.

Since our own factories have been aware of the rumours, and that’s all they have been rumours - there have been no official documents, we have had the insight and fortune to place our manufacturing schedule early ensuring that our goods are ready for shipping and receive certification in good time. We along with our customers placed orders before and just after Christmas 2007.

We now have some material on the water (on container ships) and making its way to us. During the past two months many of the major sellers of Category 4 material in this country have been restricting and even closing there sales to their customers in a bid to ensure they have enough material for themselves this year. The main reason for this of course is because they have no way of guaranteeing that they will receive some or even any of their orders.

1.3G Fireworks have been particular problems since there was an accident involving shells at a storage facility back in February. The already shaking transport system was rocked by an explosion near a Container Port and they immediately closed down to fireworks, and the accident was found to be caused by 1.3G material. So the already overstretched and over stressed transport system for fireworks became even more fragile, added to that the prospect of a Transport ban been placed from 1^st June to October 10^th.

Life importing Fireworks is certainly not easy, and to a certain degree nor should it be, but some of the hardness is un necessary and in some cases makes it more dangerous as stockpile of Fireworks gather in China with perhaps no way of actually leaving the country.

More recent rumours have seen some of these dates relaxed and we are fortunate that our items are on the way or booked onto vessels later in June. However I will not count my chickens before they hatch as the Chinese system, as good as it is cannot always be relied upon!