Japanese Fireworks Setup and Display Photos

Fort Worth, Texas Sesquicentennial Celebration

Fort Worth celebrated its 150th anniversary with a week of activities concluding with a celebration in Heritage Park that contained two firework displays. The first was a low level display closer to the audience, followed by an all-shell show provided by Kase Industries, Inc., based in Nagaoka, Japan; Fort Worth's "sister city". Atlas Enterprises of Fort Worth fired both of these displays.

	This display gave Texas pyrotechnicians a chance to work with fellow display firers from Japan. Kase Industries sent two expert pyrotechnicians and an interpreter. Together, these men and women from two continents produced an outstanding show to honor this special event for Fort Worth.
	Our Texas contingent learned the Japanese way of setting up a display from master firer, Ishiguro Sakae, wearing the darker blue shirt. His interpreter, Paul Faris, stayed close, in case translation was needed. Paul is an avid fireworks lover himself. We had an very interesting and educational information exchange with our guests from Japan.
	Instead of connecting each shell to an electric match, a "scene" consisting of approximately 50 shells, is ignited with a single quickmatch fuse. Each shell has an independent delay fuse to fire it at the appropriate time during the scene.
	Watanabe Akiyoshi, on the far right, shows how small garnishment shells are placed on top of larger shells in the finale scene.
	Mr. Ishiguro prepares 12 inch shells in mortars brought from Japan. They are slightly thinner steel than we use, banded in three places for added strength. All other mortars were plastic ones supplied by Atlas Enterprises, overall coordinator of the displays.
	Adhesive-backed foil tape covers the quickmatch to prevent premature ignition from falling debris.
	Part of a scene from the high-level display.
	Another nice combination of Kase Industries shells.