A summer fireworks show will return to Sweet Home this year, but it won’t be during Sportsman’s Holiday.
Ron Carter, who has put on many of the fireworks displays in east Linn County nearly four decades, said last week that he will put on a show at 10 p.m. on the Fourth of July on the Radiator Supply House property on the north end of 47th Avenue.
“It was the only ground I could get in Sweet Home,” said Carter, emphasizing that the show will be fireworks-only – no barbecuing this year.
Parking will be by donation, with proceeds benefitting the Sweet Home High School drill team. Gates open at 8 p.m. on July 4.
Carter spent part of last week at the pond between Radiator Supply and the city water treatment plant, measuring the area in preparation for the show. He noted he’s being assisted with the show by Adam Leisinger, special projects manager for the City of Sweet Home, who has completed his fireworks display certification.
Carter said this year’s display will be a little different than the ones Sweet Home residents have seen at Foster Lake – before COVID put an end to that venue, and Quarry Park, where Sportsman’s Holiday shows have been held after COVID until last year.
“Up at the lake and down at the quarry we’re shooting individual mortars,” he said, explaining that those mortars ranged from 3 to 6 inches in size. “For every inch a mortar is, it will go up 100 feet.”
This year he plans to use a “pre-loaded” show, rather than going through the painstaking process of placing individual mortars across the property.
“Everything comes loaded in a box already,” Carter said. “It’s actually a lot easier and quicker for us to set up.”
The boxed rounds range from three-quarters to 2½ inches in size, so the highest ones will rise about 250 feet.
“That’s why I need 250 feet of clearance around me,” he said, pointing at the pond that will separate the shooting area from the audience.
Carter said he thinks the audience will appreciate the show, which he predicted will be “a very, very lively show.”
“For the shows up at the lake and the quarry we’d shoot upwards of 350 to 400 rounds,” he said. “This show, I will be shooting approximately 1,500 rounds. Once it ignites, it just continuously shoots. There’s just constantly something in the air.”
He said the show should last about 15 minutes.
When he put on a similar show at Willamette Speedway, Carter said a woman approached him with her daughters and told him, “That’s the prettiest thing I’ve seen since Disneyland.”
“That was a pretty nice compliment,” Carter said. “Hopefully, it will be a pretty sweet show. I hope we have a good crowd.”