Windham-Raymond school administrator will bring experience to light at Saturday’s fireworks display.

WINDHAM – Saturday night’s fireworks show at Windham’s Summerfest is billed as one of the highlights of the Lakes Region summer. The fabulous flurry of exploding light and sound will no doubt be accompanied by oohs and ahhhs from the crowd.

But while the blasts and booms will mesmerize those watching, the real stars of the show will be off-stage, out of view, working in dangerous conditions to make possible for the crowd the annual fireworks show, which this year begins at 9:30 p.m. at Windham High School.

And the pyrotechnician in charge, the man responsible for the brightly colored and loud display, is actually homegrown and known to many in town: Chris Howell, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment at Windham-Raymond RSU 14 and a district employee since 1996.

A licensed pyrotechnician with Central Maine Pyrotechnics based in the Hallowell area, the 40-year-old father of three boys has been working at Summerfest longer than he’s been employed in the district.

“The reason I do it, it’s a chance to be a little kid again because it is so much fun,” Howell said. “It’s a chance also to get the absolute best view of a fireworks show that you will ever have. There’s a certain smell to it. There’s a feel to it. It grabs all of your senses at the same time.”

Howell got his fateful start in pyrotechnics while still a teen. The uncle of his brother Wes’ first girlfriend worked for Blue Hill Pyrotechnics and needed some extra help for a show in Buxton in the late 1980s. Later, when Howell was in his early 20s, his brother married a woman whose father worked at Central Maine Pyrotechnics.

Over the years, Howell has worked nearly every Independence Day in locations throughout Maine, and for the past few years, since Summerfest’s revival in 2007, the two brothers have worked in Windham in June.

The best part of a fireworks show, according to Howell, is of course the sprays of color, but it’s also the concussive bangs. And Howell knows how to use both effects to please the huge Windham Summerfest audience.

“It’s like a bouquet. A lot of people say it’s like painting the sky, but I also like noise. I like to have lots of noise,” Howell said. “If there’s a whole bunch of just color, I’ll try to tie in some noise to make that happen. My favorite finales end with 40-50 bangs, solid. Absolutely solid.”

Howell’s theory on fireworks is simple: Keep the show flowing. Unintended breaks in rhythm, such as when a fuse doesn’t light, a mortar doesn’t fire or a “cake” doesn’t explode, are showstoppers, literally.

“The worst thing that can happen in a fireworks show is a pause,” Howell said. “It may seem like a few seconds, but for us it feels like 10 minutes.”

Howell especially enjoys finales, which in Summerfest’s version will be a 45-second burst of color and sound that wraps up the 20-minute show. The Summerfest finale will feature 400 shells all tied together so only one fuse needs to be lit to launch the entire barrage. During the show, Howell and his fellow pyros are too busy lighting fuses and counting bursts to look up to watch the pretty displays. But during the finale, once that fuse is lit, they can look up and enjoy the fruit of their labor.

“I love finales, they’re actually the only part of the show I see, and I just absolutely love watching them,” Howell said. “It is such a multi-sensory experience that I just think people love. And I think the more chaos that happens within that experience the more excited people get.”

And while he can’t witness the majority of the show, Howell wouldn’t trade his spot next to the launching pad, even though powerful explosives are going off within feet and burning paper is filling the air.

“When you go to another show and you have to stand back, it just is not the same. You are absolutely ruined for life,” he said. “You’re literally looking straight up, everything is happening right over your head and the concussion of one of these things going off, there’s a tremendous, tremendous amount of compression as one of these things goes by, and you can feel it.”

And while developing curriculum for Windham and Raymond’s schoolchildren and shooting off fireworks may seem like they have nothing in common, they do, according to Howell.

“The piece where they’re very similar is working with the public. I go into a lot of towns and either need to work with the fire chief or the police chief or some community organizer, so there’s a bit of – call it diplomacy, call it professionalism, call it whatever you want – this job is all about meeting different people, making sure needs are being met,” Howell said.

The differences may seem obvious. There’s no desk, no paperwork, no long meetings to attend, and no complaints.

“At my (school) job many of the tasks I work on take years, and in (pyrotechnics), it’s done in 20 minutes. So that’s a big difference,” Howell said.

Howell will also be accompanied by two other Windham crew members: high school physics teacher Wayne Rathbun and Windham resident Ted Smith.

“I work with crew of guys; it’s just a lot fun being together. Both Wayne and Ted like to shoot, and they shoot under my license,” Howell said.

Dramatic color, like this fireworks display at last year’s Windham Summerfest, may look pretty in the sky, but Summerfest lead pyrotechnician Chris Howell says the magic is in the bangs. “I like to have lots of noise,” the Windham educator said.
(Photo courtesy of Port City Photography)