Our Guide to Different Types of Fireworks

Do you ever find yourself staring at a firework display and wondering what the different effects are called? Well, you aren’t alone!

The sky should be filled with an array of colours, patterns, and effects during a fireworks show, but there are actually only a few different types of firework. There are, however, many effects which come from these few types, and this is where the skill of the designer is focussed.

If you’re planning to impress friends and/or neighbours with a fireworks display, you’ll have a vision in mind, but it can be hard to find exactly what you need without the expertise. But, as pyrotechnics specialists, that’s where we come in!

Types of Fireworks

We’ll walk you through the different types of fireworks and effects, as well as how they’re typically used in a pyrotechnics display.

Roman Candles

Roman candles are the staple diet of the firework display, typically lasting for 25 to 30 seconds and providing the continuity. They deliver a wide range of effects including, comets, bombettes, mines, crossettes, butterflies and serpents as well as noise effects like flash reports, hummers, whistles, crackle and screechers.

Roman candle fireworks are usually eight shots per candle, fired singly at regular intervals across the width of the site, or in bouquets of 3, 5 or 7. They can be angled to create a lattice or various shapes in the sky too.

Mines

Mines are usually utilised to mark the opening and closing of a firework display. They may also be used in coordination with music to highlight a crescendo or a significant change in tempo or key. When fired en masse from a wide frontage, ground-based firework mines can deliver a huge wall of stars that will wow the audience. Mines come in many different sizes and give a variety of visual and audio effects.

Mines contain a propellant charge and one or more pyrotechnic units, where all the units are discharged at the same time in a single ignition.

Rockets

Rocket fireworks are one of the most common types of consumer firework and are used to describe everything people see in the air! A rocket consists of one shot that launches high into the air and explodes in flares of colour. The whoosh of the rocket motor, often accompanied by a gold or silver tail, is almost the signature sound when a TV sound engineer wants to depict BIG fireworks.

Ironically, the professional industry uses rockets less and less because the stick and the rocket motor come back down. If you buy a rocket in the shops, beware of the large head — it can often be full of air and is designed to attract you to buy it. Bigger isn’t always better with rocket fireworks!

Signal Rocket

A rocket that is filled with a pyrotechnic composition where the predominant effect t is one of a loud report or bang.

Flight Rocket

A collection of rockets designed to be propelled into the air simultaneously from a frame or cone and ignited by a single or multiple fuse.

Line Rocket

The line rocket pyrotechnic is equipped to function along a rope or other guide and to produce a visual and or aural effect. A line rocket is a single functioning device, but by adding additional drivers the rocket, it can travel multiple times back and forth along the line. These are known as flying pigeons. In the dark the rope is not visible; this type of effect is a real novelty item enjoyed by audience of all ages.

A driver is a device intended to produce thrust to provide the rotation of a wheel or movement of a set piece in a fireworks display. Drivers normally consist of a tube with pressed composition and a choke at one end to create greater force to that provided from a normal gerb.

Parachute Rocket

A rocket containing pyrotechnic composition or units which, when deployed, will descend on a parachute to the ground.

Combination fireworks

A combination firework device is an assembly including several elements of more than one type of effect fused together with one or more ignition points. The individual firework types can be fused together with or without delays to provide a sequence of effects. A typical example could be an array of roman candles with a shell or mine attached to the rear of the frame designed to fire very three seconds over the duration of the roman candle battery.

Battery fireworks

An assembly of several effects of the same type with one or more ignition points, a common example would be an array of roman candles attached to a frame in a fan configuration.

Cake fireworks

Cake fireworks (also known as Barrages) are a very popular alternative to create continuity and duration in a fireworks display. Cake fireworks are an assembly of shot tubes containing various pyrotechnic units arranged in a manner that an initial fuse transmits from one tube to the next, initiating each tube in sequence one after the other. It delivers a unique pre-programmed volley of effects from rapid fire cakes of only a few seconds to larger cakes with a duration of 2 minutes.

In other words, multi-shot Cake fireworks consist of lots of individual, shorter tubes fused together to fire in succession — sometimes very rapidly and sometimes quite slowly. Barrage fireworks are very similar to Roman Candles in terms of a large range of effects coming from the tubes. But they are pre-angled so the impact in the sky of fans, Z-shapes, W-shapes and varying speed of ignition create many possibilities. Cakes come in a wide variety of sizes, from a small 19-shot Crackling Willow-effect Cake to a large, 600-shot, rapid-fire Peacock’s Tail Fan effect.

Single Shot tubes

A recent addition to the firework choreographers armoury is the single shot firework. Items have become popular with pyromusical firework displays, where a wide frontage of single shot effects can be used to emphasise a particular moment in the soundtrack.

Single shot fireworks are also used to add an extra dimension, providing movement and animation into the display with chase sequences. As the names suggests, they are a single effect from a single tube, although they will come in a whole range of colours and effects.

Fountains

Fountains are another popular type of firework and are used to create variety in a pyrotechnics display. These range from small silver fountains to large display fountains, which emit a huge shower of sparks 8 metres into the sky. When put together on wooden frames or set pieces, they can create beautiful lattice patterns, as well as being used as drivers to create Catherine Wheels. Fountains last a long time (up to 50 seconds sometimes) too, so they are good at creating a focal point to a pyrotechnics display.

A Gerb is another name for a fountain.

Crown Wheel / Flying Saucer / Girandola

An aerial wheel consists of tubes containing propellant charges and or noise producing compositions, the tubes are fixed to a circular supporting structure designed to rotate and ascend into the air from the thrust of the propellant tubes. Some wheels provide a double action where once the first sequence of tubes have fired the wheel continues to rotate and fall, momentarily a secondary array of tubes is ignited to make the wheel ascend again.

Aqua Fireworks

A firework designed to float on or near the surface of water by means of a buoyancy device or by itself, and to function on or below the water. An example would be a bombette unit fired from a cake, a fountain or gerb held in place by a cork float or a shell.

Slice

A slice is normally an assembly of shot tubes arranged in a fanned array, similar to a roman candle battery. Designed to be fired with one ignition point, either as a single hit of all tubes at the same time or a sweep of effects in a fast chase from one end to the other or from the centre out.

Lance & Lancework

A lance is a small diameter tube, the size of a cigarette  containing a pyrotechnic composition. When ignited, it delivers a bight burning flame for up to 60 seconds. It can either be used to deliver a thermal output to ignite another device or attached to a frame and fused together to from lancework, where the tubes are arranged to form a letter or pattern and ignited together. The classic example is GOOD NIGHT at the end of a display.

Lancework pieces can be exceedingly complex to represent a complicated logo or image using colour changing lances or secondary devices like gerbs and fountains.

Set Piece

An assembly including one or multiple elements, which is designed not to rotate. Generally these elements include lances, fountains, gerbs and cascades — but can also include bangers and ground maroons. When arranged on a framework, the fountains can be used to create intricate lattice patterns.

Ground Maroon

A ground maroon is one without a propellant charge, designed to be placed on the ground. It produces a loud bang when ignited.

Wheel

An assembly including a tube or tubes containing pyrotechnic composition, attached to a support so that it can rotate. Normally the force to drive the wheel round is delivered by the thrust of the pyrotechnic device but, for larger more complicated wheels, drivers can be added for more thrust, or a mechanical method for turning can be introduced.

Bengal

A tube containing a slow burning composition which, when ignited, burns with a bright flame. The tube typically burns away while the Bengal functions. A Bengal is similar to a lance, but is normally a larger tube and is positioned on the ground providing a bright light source.

A saxon is a tube intended to be attached to a support in its center point so that it can rotate. A saxon generally burns from both ends ejecting sparks and rotating at the same time.

Portfire

A handheld device containing a slow burning composition and emitting a small flame. Similar to a lance but normally the tube is significantly longer, the portfire can be considered a hand held lance as is used to ignite firework fuses manually.

Waterfall

A waterfall is a case containing a pressed pyrotechnic composition that produces a spark and flame, and generally consumes the tube as it burns. Waterfall cases are designed to be suspended above the ground where the sparks fall down creating the illusion of a waterfall of cascading sparks.

Shells

A Shell is a device with or without propellant charge, with one or more delays before bursting. Typically the pyrotechnic composition of units are contained within a casing, which is propelled from a mortar tube. The casing or shell rises with a delay fuse slowly burning to a bursting charge in the center of the shell. Then, once the shell has reached its apex, the bursting charge is designed to ignite and burst the composition or units creating a large cluster of burning stars in the sky. Shells are broadly spherical or cylindrical in design, the size and shape of the units to be contained normally dictate which design is preferable.

Daylight Shell

A daylight shell is a spherical or cylindrical shell designed to be fired from a mortar containing subcomponents or pyrotechnic composition that are visible in the daylight, typically coloured light, dyed smoke or audible noise effects.

Parachute Shell

A parachute shell is designed to be fired from a mortar containing sub components, which will descend from a parachute.

Spherical Shell

A round shell containing pyrotechnic composition and or units, normally an arrangement of coloured stars or comets.

Cylindrical Shell

A cylinder-shaped shell which normally contains larger units or effects made from smaller tubes, for example, whistle effects or tourbillions.

Multibreak Shell

A shell with several discrete elements, designed to be fired from a mortar but contains a number of components stacked on top of each other. Each element has its own timed delay fuse, designed to function sequentially one after the other.

Peanut Shell

Two round shells stacked on top of each other which, when papered, resemble a large peanut. Both shells are fired simultaneously from the same mortar and burst in sequence according to the internal delay fuse timings.

Shell of Shells

A device containing multiple smaller shells inside a larger shell, designed to be fired from a mortar tube. The shell bursts, propelling the smaller shells out — which in turn have a separate internal timed fuse, bursting simultaneously or over a programmed sequence.

Aerial Star Shells

Saving the best till last and strictly the domain of the professional pyrotechnician, we have aerial star shells. The professional industry will almost always use these instead of rockets. Fired from mortar tubes, aerial star shells are launched in to the sky and can reach heights of 250 metres in a matter of seconds.

The delay fuse is designed to ignite the bursting charge at the apex of the vertical flight, and a huge canopy of stars is lit to deliver patterns of colours and sounds. The burst from the largest star shell can give a 150m canopy of stars. Star shell fireworks come in a variety of sizes and are often fired in sequential barrages.

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