Bernie Toso has a habit of smokin’ up the neighborhood.
Toso, owner of Bad Ol’ Bern’s BBQ and Ice Cream, also is a pyrotechnician who will be in charge of running the fireworks display at Fourth of July festivities Wednesday night at the Lyon County Fairgrounds. He is a member of the Flint Hills Optimist Club, which sponsors the community event.
As a state and federally licensed pyrotechnician, Toso can purchase and handle the hazardous Class B fireworks used in professional displays. State licensing requires the applicant to be 21 years or older and to have assisted in three verified shoots with a licensed shooter. The applicant also must pass an hour-and-a-half open-book test.
Federal licensing includes a background check, fingerprinting, mug shots and a $175 fee. Before 9-11, he said, licensing was easier and Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco was not as deeply involved.
“They can come in your place of business any time, 24 hours a day, to check your records if they want,” Toso said. “... It’s to the point now that there’s been a lot of people go ahead and drop just because of all the red tape that’s required.”
Among the rules are stringent requirements for storage and handling, and a thorough accounting of each piece of explosive material.
“If you have a missing shell, you’re required to notify the ATF within 24 hours,” he said.
Toso doesn’t mind jumping through the federal hoops. His interest in fireworks might have started when his mother showed him how to make firecrackers last longer by rigging coffee cans and water together with a firecracker and watching the can blow into the air.
He still enjoys the boom of the “salute” fireworks, and the shot and sequence patterns of colorful aerial displays like chrysanthemums, comets and palm trees, which are his favorite. For the more elaborate displays, the key is in the loading, which is done at manufacturing sites in China.
“The guy I’m getting mine from actually goes to China and watches them being made,” Toso said.
Shooting has become so sophisticated that, with a hefty investment in electronic starters and the proper computer equipment, fireworks can be set to go off rhythmically to music.
Toso’s set-up includes the electronic starters and a switch board that allows him to sit at least 50 feet from the explosives and set them off in the order he wishes.
“We don’t go as far as matching the colors, but you could, if you wanted to get technical,” he said.
A bulb for each element of the display lights up if the shell is okay to shoot, and he carries a line-by-line program that shows his plan for shooting each display, in tandem or singly.
The system is an improvement over the old method, when Toso would tape a flare to a broomstick and use it as a giant punk to light the displays.
“They won’t tip over. We tie them down very securely,” he added.
Toso and the Optimists’ shoot assistants will set up the displays in fiberglas mortars, making sure that each shell is packed properly; a safety string on each shell helps ensure that it points in the right direction. A fuse, or squib, attached to a “match” — channels of gun powder packed into a flat paper wrapping — is connected to a small bag of explosive powder that dangles beneath the shell. The shells themselves have two separate matches. When the small bag of powder explodes, it ignites the shell’s matches, which in turn ignites the powder and blows it high into the sky.
On Wednesday, between $16,000 and $20,000 worth of fireworks will be used for the 30-minute show.
“I think the biggest one we’re shooting this year is a $350 cake,” Toso said. Cakes are mutli-shot displays that contain from 25 to 360 or more shots that fire off one fuse.
Safety is paramount, Toso said, for the shooters and for the audience. Before the show starts, onlookers will be moved outside a 350-foot circle.
“The problem we ran into is the bathroom on the fairgrounds is within the safe zone,” Toso said. “Once we start to shoot we can’t have anyone within the safe area.”
Portable restrooms will be brought in for the public to use.
The fireworks display will begin after dusk, approximately 9:15 to 9:30.
Before the fireworks display, some former Emporians will bring their bands from Kansas City to perform at no charge beginning at 7 p.m. at the fairgrounds.
“They’re guys ... who want to come back and give something back to the community,” Toso said.
The first will be The Johnny Dollar Band, featuring a blend of classic and progressive rock. The band includes former Emporians Jim Mitchell on vocals and bass and Scott Green on drums. Kirk Boulanger rounds out the band on vocals and guitars.
Emporian John Butcher is on guitar and vocals for Johnny Night and the Crawlers, a “Kansas City style electric blues” band, according to a news release. Craig Odle is on bass and vocals and Jim Orr on keyboard, guitar and vocals. Scott Green also drums in the Crawlers band.
Toso said that he expects to have hamburgers, hot dogs, and brats, along with water and pop, for sale on the grounds.