In the Pyro Crew’s planning lair — location undisclosed for security reasons — Chris Hupe produced a layout of the launch site and spread it out across a long table. He stood over the map like a general, stabbing a thick finger at various white squares. “Each of these boxes by themselves could be a small fireworks show,” Hupe said. “We have 81 of them.” He rattled off some more stats: a 225,000-square-foot site, 12,000 pounds of fireworks, 2,051 electronically triggered events, 800 hand-lit shells, 25 “dragons” that throw columns of flames 30 feet in the air. … On Tuesday evening, it will add up to Boomtown, a free pyrotechnic extravaganza that rockets the population of Wamego — a town otherwise best known for its Oz Museum — from 5,000 to something like 50,000 every Independence Day. Families arrive not just from neighboring towns but neighboring states to witness a 30-minute Fourth of July fireworks show that’s among the largest and most ambitious in the Midwest.
Source: Kansas City Star