Fireworks Blog

A Catherine Wheel - image from Wikipedia As many times, I'm again talking about a fireworks type that is very common in my origin country (Portugal) - what we call " ground fireworks " or " fogo preso " in portuguese. There are some types of fireworks that we can call " ground fireworks ", but the most interesting I know about are like spinning wheels or " catherine wheels ". Usually, some events of real life are pictured using this kind of fireworks, like people riding bikes, animals moving, people dancing, illuminated churches or Catholic saints pictures, because the majority of fireworks shows are related to Catholic feasts. The most of ground fireworks I know are powered by small rocket motors (that cause the wheels to move) and gerbs to illuminate or color the scene. Some of these fireworks have explosions at the end, which usually causes some kind of scare in the public! The sound of the rocket motors powering the wheels is ...

Today, December 4th is the Saint Barbara's day . Saint Barbara is considered the patron of all the people that works with fire and explosives ( Fireworks, Military, Mining , etc.) essentialy because her legend is related to lightning. She is also invoked against thunder, lighnining dangers and any kind of accident that may result from the work with the activities I mentioned before. If you have the opportunity to visit a fireworks factory in some mainly "Catholic" country like Portugal, Spain, Italy, Mexico you could see that many of them have Saint Barbara's images beliving in protection during their works. In many military institutions you can also find sometimes Saint Barbara's related things. Read more about Saint Barbara's life and legend on Wikipedia