HILL AIR FORCE BASE — An air show without pyrotechnics is just another fly over.

At least that’s how Rick Myers and his team of flame-throwing pyrotechnicians see it.

Myers and his Firewalkers International crew have been in town for nearly a week now, preparing to — as Myers puts it — “provide the exclamation point” to this year’s Warriors Over the Wasatch open house and air show at Hill Air Force Base. 

“I sincerely mean no offense, because these are some of the best pilots in the world,” Meyers said. “But once you’ve seen four or five airplanes in a row doing circles and loops and stuff, the only difference at that point is the color of the airplane. We kind of punctuate what they do.”

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The Firewalkers pyro show is pretty self-explanatory — lots of fire, lots of heat and lots of loud explosions.

The show includes nearly half a ton of commercial mining explosives and several hundred gallons of gasoline.

“Anything you’d find in mining operations, that’s the same stuff we use,” Myers said. “Then we add gasoline on top of everything.”

The concept, Myers says, is to use commercial grade explosives to produce Hollywood-like special effects around the planes.

“We make the airplanes look like they are dropping bombs and shooting guns,” he said. “We can make it look like a strafing run coming at you or a napalm shot or a double bomb. Our specialty is a little thing we like to call ‘The 1,000-foot wall of fire.'”

To make that show-ending blast happen, Myers uses a 2,200-foot detonating cord and about 500 gallons of gas. Myers says that once it’s lit, the detonating cord burns at a rate of 23,000 feet per second.

“So if your (near the detonation site), you’d better be able to run a little bit faster than that or you’ll have a problem,” he said.

MATT HERP/Standard-Examiner

Myers has a crew of about 30 people he can draw from to help with his performance. A normal show crew usually consists of four to eight people. Myers said eight crew members are on hand for the Hill show, including people from Chicago, San Francisco, Madison, Wisconsin and Virginia Beach, Virginia. 

An Air Force veteran who served for 31 years, Myers spent more than 20 years of his career in munitions. That’s when he first started learning about explosives. Eventually, he landed at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho and while stationed there, he worked as head of the base’s flight, weapons and ground safety divisions. 

“All of a sudden this air show shows up and they told me, ‘by the way, you’re in charge of all the performers with pyrotechnics,” he said. “I was thinking the guys with bottle rockets and flares coming out of their planes, but it was the same kinds of things we are doing now.”

Before establishing his own pyro squad — which began performing in 2013 — Myers worked with a team run by a man named Rich Gibson and his outfit, Rich’s Incredible Pyro.

“He was kind of a mentor to me,” Myers said. “He decided to hang it up and go travel the world, so we’re picking up where he left off.”

Myers’ new team has performed in China, Australia, El Salvador and all across the United States. After the Hill show, the team has a late-July performance scheduled in Alaska.

“We travel all over the world and blow things up and get paid to do it basically,” he said. “It’s not a bad gig.”

Firewalkers crew member Stacey Matthews is working this year’s Hill show. She said she got into the pyro game because of her father, David Fickenscher, who has worked with Myers for nearly 20 years.

“We’re basically volunteers,” Matthews said. “It’s a lot of hard work. On the show days, we are out setting up at 4:30 in the morning, but once you get it all set up and hit that wire, it’s amazing.”

You can reach reporter Mitch Shaw at mishaw@standard.net or at 801-625-4233. Follow him on Twitter at @mitchshaw23 or like him on Facebook.