By Anna Haefele

Special to the Weekly

It’s hard to miss the Fourth of July fireworks show. After all, each Independence Day at 10:30 p.m., the sky is ignited with thousands of fireworks, each one designed by a local crew of pyrotechnicians and showcased in a mind-blowing fireworks exhibition that spans a quarter of a mile and shows off the skill of the crew to maximum effect.

“You’ll be lucky to find a few, if any, like it in the nation,” says Nick Gislason, the head pyrotechnician, who masterminds the choreography and design of each year’s show.

Part of the show’s singularity is the approach to the choreography. Every show is put together in the Japanese-style, with sets of explosions that showcase each effect individually.

The ideology behind this is relatively simple: “If there’s too many things going on at once, the details and the subtleties get lost…we believe that so much work has gone into these effects that each effect should be appreciated individually,” says Gislason.

The fireworks are not only displayed by the crew members, but a fair amount are also made by them. “the team is composed of firework builders, not just operators,” Gislason says.

The crew itself is made up entirely of volunteers, many of whom take off work to prepare the show. However, even without a paid crew of builders and operators, the show is expensive – costing around $36,000 annually (a show of similar quality would cost around $150,000 dollars if it were put on by a commercial for-profit company). All of that cost is covered by the community, by way of small, individual donations, as, unlike most other fireworks displays, the show does not have a corporate sponsor. Similar to many other island efforts, this show is entirely grass roots, and with the help of consistent community support, has evolved into what many call “one of the biggest, most artistic shows on the west coast” over the course of the last thirty years.

In addition to funds, the fireworks display also requires a colossal amount of time and effort on the part of the volunteers, and typically, by this time of year, the crew is already looking towards next year’s show, with the choreography for each exhibition being prepared fifteen to sixteen months in advance. All that time and energy has been worth it however, as Lopez Community Fireworks has won dozens of awards over the years, often for unique, never-before-seen effects that were essentially invented for the Lopez fireworks display. However, even without the recognition, the crew members would still want to create the show.

“We’re really into it for the art…it’s this passion for making something beautiful that people take pleasure in,” says Gislason.