The "orange chrysanthemum" fireworks shell, stuffed inside a black launching pipe, resembled a mummy-wrapped piece of fruit - but packed the power of a military howitzer.
"It's a cannon. It's nothing to play with," said Bill Miller, lead crew pyrotechnician for Zambelli Fireworks International of New Castle, Pa., while he was setting up for Tuesday's 17-minute fireworks display behind Coca-Cola Field following the Buffalo Bisons game.
Booming and cascading fireworks will light the nighttime skies tonight on Independence Day, thrilling tens of thousands of area residents with enough gunpowder in all those launches to sink a small navy.
The people setting off the fireworks are, for the most part, professional pyrotechnic workers who need to be very careful if they want to maintain longevity in the business. For some, it's spotty, if not seasonal, work.
But for Miller, it's year-round, since he owns the Grand Fireworks manufacturing plant in Cuba, N.Y. in addition to fattening cattle for beef on his 232-acre farm.
On Tuesday, the 65-year-old pyrotechnics veteran led a crew that carefully set up and wired rows of explosives from an empty Scott Street parking lot, near Michigan Avenue, for the Coca-Cola Field event.
Names of some of the fireworks in boxes shipped from China included "red cherry wired white blue colored pistil," "red dahlia with red tail," "purple to white to blue peony." And one was marked "coconut trees for finale."
Kim Pauly, Miller's daughter, a "shooter," attached an electric match to the shell's fuse, with the other end attached to an electrical board hooked up to a 24-volt battery.
A separate group of fireworks, made up of a variety of colors and effects, as well as some that make booming sounds, were saved for the finale.
"This will be a more intense show because of the time constraint, and everybody remembers the intensity," Miller said of the Coca-Cola Field show. "That's why everybody likes the finale, because it is more intense and it's where everything happens."
And accidents? Miller he said that "99 percent of the time," they result from human error. Products from China and Japan are of a much better quality than 20 years ago, he said. Still, he noted, tragedies can occur if people aren't careful.
Miller recalled a pyrotechnics worker from his hometown of Portville who lit a shell that failed to go off nearly 30 years ago at a show in Butte, Mont.
"He went over and peered into the tube and it took his head off," he said.
Miller has been burned from debris that fell from the sky, but never seriously. A cleared radius of 70 feet per inch of shell size is the industry standard to keep the public away from the launching area.
Insurance isn't cheap - the company takes a blanket $9 million insurance policy per show that it puts on, Miller said, plus the added cost of insuring the rental trucks that transport the fireworks.
Miller, who said he got into the pyrotechnics industry in 1981 after things weren't going well as a dairy farmer, said the gratification comes at the end of the fireworks display.
"As soon as it's done, the sound [from the audience] is just deafening," he said. "That makes it all worthwhile. It can be a long and tedious day, and that erases all of it."
Wind is the pyrotechnic workers' biggest concern, with federal standards forbidding shows if its strength reaches 35 miles per hour. But as Miller spoke, raindrops caused him and his crew to temporarily cover the fireworks with heavy sheets of plastic.
Heavy winds were also the reason why fireworks were cancelled Tuesday at Woodlawn State Park.
Bob Leo, the lead pyrotechnician for that display, being put on by West Seneca-based Skylighter Fireworks, was disappointed the show would have to be rescheduled since it meant no work that night. But he planned to be at work at 6 a.m. this morning getting ready for the mostly computerized extravaganza planned for 10:15 p.m. at Buffalo's Erie Canal Harbor. Skylighter also is putting on a big display at Baird Point on the University at Buffalo's North Campus in Amherst, scheduled to start at 10 p.m. tonight.
The price tag for shows is based on the number, sizes and types of shells chosen, with the waterfront display costing $25,000 and the one in Amherst $19,500 - raising the ante to deliver shows that are both safe and spectacular.
For Leo, who is also president of the Western New York Pyrotechnic Association, work is steady between Memorial Day and Labor Day, with an increased demand for fireworks at sporting events, company parties and even weddings, which Leo said start at $1,500.
Because the State of New York requires a pyrotechnics shooter licensed through the state Department of Labor to be on hand for any event involving the use of fire, Leo has been occasionally paid to be at concerts and even 23 shows of "The Phantom of the Opera" at Shea's Performing Arts Center.
Leo said he's looking forward to putting on an impressive show over the Buffalo River tonight, but he won't be among those watching.
"I haven't seen a show in 25 years," he said. "Seriously, I go out on YouTube. ... That's the only way I get to see it."
Other Independence Day fireworks shows will be held at dusk tonight at the Marilla and Wales Boys & Girls Club in Elma; Martin's Fantasy Island in Grand Island; Lewiston Plateau near Artpark in Lewiston; Outwater Park in Lockport; Orchard Park Middle School in Orchard Park; Community Park in Springville; and Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua.
