CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pennsylvania (WCMH) – An individual firework only lasts a few seconds, but the manufacturing process takes much longer and NBC4 got a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the fireworks for Red, White and BOOM! are made.
Up a dirt road, through the wood, on top of a hill about an hour and a half east of Pittsburgh, there's a campground-looking area. Despite what goes on there, it can be quiet at times.
“It’s our little slice of heaven," said Vince Terrizzi, vice president of Starfire Corporation. The company manufactures fireworks and puts on pyrotechnics shows.
The "little slice of heaven" Terrizzi referred to is the company's fireworks plant, where shells are packed and wrapped by hand.
Chaise Grondahl, a shell builder, said that, in general, for every second of fireworks audiences see in the sky, there's about an hour's worth of work that went into putting that firework together.
“You have to be a special kind of person to do the stuff we do, to see everything you worked so hard for just blow up in the sky," Grondahl said. "I like to think it's one of the purest forms of art because you only get to see this once and then it's gone.”
Pyrotechnics are a family affair at Starfire. Terrizzi's parents started the company nearly 60 years ago.
This year marks Starfire's first time supplying some of the fireworks for Columbus' Red, White and BOOM!
“They enjoyed the idea of the American-made stuff and the noise we’re going to bring to the city, and we were joking at dinner, but it was putting the boom back into Boom! and that’s what we’re really good for and so we’re really excited about that," Terrizzi said.
Building and testing happen all year at the fireworks plant, but around the 4th of July is Starfire's Super Bowl. Terrizzi said what gets them through are the smiles and oohs and ahhs.
“For your show in Columbus, anywhere else we do shows, sporting events, just to be a part of it, to take peoples’ minds away for the 20-some-odd minutes that their show is, they forget about every problem they have in the world for that 20 minutes and it’s made with our hands, he said.
Planning for Independence Day 2025 will start as soon as this year's celebrations are over, according to Terrizzi.
