The Hottest Act at the Fair : Every Night Is Like an Old-Fashioned July 4 in Ventura, to the Delight of Young and Old

Every night at dusk during the 12 days of the Ventura County Fair, pyrotechnic wizards Roger Jobe and Stern Ingham carefully load 209 explosive shells into short cardboard cannons braced in the sand at Surfer’s Point in Ventura.

The Chinese-made mortars look innocent enough, like big brown paper-wrapped eggs that swing from long, stringy fuses.

But at 9:30 p.m., the bombs that bear names such as Red Peony, Chrysanthemum and Salute burst into the night’s sky--traveling about 100 feet per second--and spray colorful luminescent sparks in every direction.

“It’s like the Fourth of July every night,” said fair-goer Michelle Rein of Ventura. And that is just the kind of experience the pyrotechnists are trying to create.

“This is a crowd draw,” said Jobe, who has hauled explosives from Bakersfield to the Ventura County Fair for five years. “We had people last night say the only reason they come [to the fair] is the fireworks.”

Jobe and Ingham, who work for Pennsylvania-based Zambelli Internationale Fireworks, run an old-fashioned show fit for an old-fashioned fair. Unlike with most displays, which are launched electronically, Jobe and Ingham light their fireworks by hand and take great pride--and caution--in doing so.

“I’ve had duds; I’ve had shells blow up,” said Jobe, who uses a flare to light the fuses. “We are right up there, arm’s distance.”

Fair officials have contracted with Zambelli since 1990. The company is paid $2,000 a day, which works out to about $250 a minute for the nightly shows that last about eight minutes. Fair organizers say it is money well spent.

“I think people definitely enjoy it,” publicist Teri Raley said. “I think it provides sort of an exclamation point on the day. Everybody just stops in wonderment, they grab their kids and go, ‘Ooo-Ooo-Ooo.’ ”

Indeed, at precisely 9:30 p.m., traffic on the midway halts as fair-goers turn their eyes skyward. Pseeewww-boom! A blossom of red and blue sparks fills the air, followed by a streaking white comet and an echoing blast.

“There is an awe about them,” said Lancaster resident Terry Ingham, Stern Ingham’s daughter. “They make you feel like a little kid again.”

Touring the staging area at Surfer’s Point last week, an area cordoned off for safety and insurance purposes, Jobe explained some of the magic behind his nightly displays.

The pyrotechnists mix and match mortars of varying size, color and sound to create different effects each night.

Salutes are the noisy ones that accent the shows. They are small--the size and shape of a mango--but pack a mean blast that echoes off the Ventura hills. “They would be the equivalent of a quarter-stick of dynamite,” Jobe said.

“This is what we call the main body of the show,” he said, pointing to a row of closely lined cardboard tubes, or “guns,” that resemble giant panpipes stuck in the sand.

“This one,” he said, pulling a cantaloupe-sized mortar out of one gun, “will go 450 to 500 feet in the air. That’s a baby one; we shoot them up to 12 inches.”

Safety is the most important factor in creating a fireworks show. Every shell and every gun is inspected nightly and a fire inspector is always on hand to make sure the show comes off without a hitch.

“It is something dangerous,” Jobe said. “The biggest thing here is, by God, don’t put the thing in upside down.”

One night last week, a shell stopped short during a show, exploding and showering green sparks just over the pyrotechnists’ heads.

Last week, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad was called to retrieve an unexploded shell that had landed on the beach by the Ventura Pier. Someone picked it up, cut it open and left it in the pier parking lot.

The shells may look like harmless coconuts but they can be deadly. Jobe once had a six-inch shell blow up at his feet during a show in Palmdale and today he has the scars to show for it.

“Unless you’ve really been up close, you don’t know the impact and the danger,” he said.

But at the same time, there is a primal thrill to igniting the little bombs that is difficult to replicate. “It’s a rush, an excitement, like doing anything that’s dangerous,” Ingham said.

On a recent night, he conducted the show while two other pyrotechnists lit the fuses. Unfazed by the guns’ deafening blasts, the men, wearing protective suits, earplugs and goggles, dashed through the smoke with hot flares trying to keep the mortars shooting in a succinct rhythm.

“Go! Go! Go!” Ingham commanded. “Hustle! Put it in the air!” High above, graceful clouds of red, purple and blue sparks burst from the little projectiles. The pyrotechnists never looked up.

The only way they know people like their work is the distant whooping and hollering from the fairgrounds when the show ends. “We’re out here; we don’t see the people,” Jobe said.

For the fair’s grand finale tonight, the wizards will launch no less than 300 shells. The display will last nearly 10 minutes, and the pyrotechnists advise finding a good place to watch.

“Last year we had about 20 surfers out there,” Jobe said, pointing to a spot about 100 yards offshore from Surfer’s Point. “To really enjoy the show and the beauty of it you have to get back.”

Popular viewing venues include the Ventura Pier, Grant Park and the west-facing side of the Holiday Inn. Last week, a small boat even dropped anchor offshore in front of the shooting range. But Jobe advises: “The best place to watch is right on top of the Ferris wheel.”

That is no secret. On their first date last Wednesday, Kim Miller of Oak View and Tim Bond of Thousand Oaks orchestrated their ride to watch the fireworks finale at the top of the 108-foot wheel.

“We tried to time it,” Bond said. “We noticed we were too early so we skipped out of line.” Jumping on the ride just moments before the show began, they were near the top when the splashy display of sparks let loose in rapid machine-gun fire at the show’s end.

“We were almost to the top,” Miller said. “It was perfect.”