Just before 2 p.m. on the Fourth of July in the Valencia Town Center mall parking lot, a crew of fireworks specialists had much of the lot next to Citrus Street taped off and a good portion at the center lined with wooden crates that were filled with firework shells. The crew hadn’t yet run any cable to the electronic firing board, but they were close.
Nathan Palmer’s dad had been the operator in charge of the city of Santa Clarita’s Fourth of July fireworks shows for the past 25-plus years. After David Palmer’s death in November, his son, now 25, is hoping to continue where his dad left off.
“I am not the operator for this show this year,” Palmer said during the set-up in the afternoon of the Fourth. “I’d love to be, but unfortunately, because I don’t have my pyrotechnic operator’s license, I can’t do that this year. This year would be Gene.”
Former Santa Clarita resident Gene Taylor had done the show for decades before Palmer’s dad did it. After a more-than-20-year absence, Taylor returned to run the community’s Fourth of July fireworks show this year. He said he was helping to facilitate the passing of the torch from one generation to the next.
A little over two months ago, when Taylor announced that he’d return to do the show, Palmer’s wife, April Palmer, said she was happy that her son wanted to carry on with his dad’s legacy. She said she hoped this year’s show could be in honor of her late husband, who put his heart and soul into the Santa Clarita fireworks shows for so many years.
“The Santa Clarita show is a warm place in our hearts,” she said in a past interview. “All three kids were born and raised in it. It’s a big ‘family’ thing. When my husband goes out to shows, we all go out also, and we’re all setting up, and we get our hands dirty. He (Palmer) has been doing shows with his dad since he was 18, and he’s been going to shows since he was born.”
In January, Taylor received a call with news about Palmer’s dad. According to Palmer’s mom, her husband suffered a brain bleed that triggered a fatal heart attack. Taylor was asked to fire the Santa Clarita show again.
“I didn’t really want to do it,” Taylor said in a previous interview. “I’ve got a very large show that I’m doing in San Diego, and my crew is going to be pushed. Most of my crew is not going to want to do another show the very next day.”
But Taylor couldn’t say no when he learned that Palmer was interested in following in his dad’s footsteps.
According to Taylor, Palmer needed five operators to write letters on his behalf before he could take the operator’s test for a license.
“This is the only reason I’m here,” Taylor said on the Fourth. He said he felt Palmer could certainly be the one to operate next year’s show, but he had several hurdles ahead of him before he could get to that point. “There are a couple of major hurdles that he’s been working on very well today. But his biggest hurdle is getting him connected with five guys or gals like me, which means four more guys or gals like me.”
Four, Taylor said, because he was counting himself as one of the five operators who was going to help.
Palmer said he was up to the task and that it would be an honor to take over his dad’s show.
“I think I got my official start when I was 5 years old,” he said. “Yeah, I was 5 when I started carrying the racks (the crates for the fireworks).”
Palmer’s mom explained that all her kids would help as much as they could — up until the fireworks were brought out. She added that no one under 18 is legally allowed to be around fireworks.
By 1 p.m. on the Fourth, the fireworks crew had already emptied a truck of fireworks from the Pyro Spectaculars fireworks company in Rialto and had set up 770 three- and 4-inch shells for the Santa Clarita show. Larger shells are more expensive, Palmer said, but according to Taylor, the larger shells create more dramatic effects, such as spherical bursts of colored stars or intense flashes accompanied by explosions like those produced by a type of firework known as a “salute.”
“Salutes have the coolest effect, in my opinion,” Palmer said. “The reason why is because they literally make noise — that’s all they’re known for. It’s a bright white flash with a loud, loud boom. Unfortunately, there are no salutes here today.”
For the Santa Clarita show, Palmer and Taylor considered the 3-inch shells to be small and the 4-inch shells to be medium-sized. According to Taylor, the 6- and 8-inch shells are classified as large.
Palmer said, “Eights would be beautiful out here.”
Taylor said he used to fire eights in Santa Clarita when he shot them from College of the Canyons decades ago.
For the Santa Clarita show this year, the crew also set up what Palmer called five “cakes,” otherwise known as, he said, multi-shot ground boxes.
Palmer showed off one of those — a “36-shot, red and blue firework with a silver palm.”
Asked if there was one section of the parking lot dedicated to the finale of the fireworks show, Palmer said there was. He pointed to a section of the lot with a giant cluster of fireworks and explained that there were around 250 shells there that’d be used to conclude the show.
Palmer also demonstrated how the fireworks system worked, including how the shells were connected to the firing board (or module, as it’s called), which was set up under a canopy several yards away from the launch site. He walked through the startup process, explained how the module’s test mode functions, and showed what happens when a firework isn’t properly connected. He also described how the operator would respond in that situation, noting that poor connections do occur from time to time.
Gabriel Villa, who was the operator’s lead, held a notebook of “cue sheets” that offered firing orders and cues, which are coordinated to music for the show. Villa said he couldn’t reveal the contents of the notebook, saying it was “kind of proprietary.”
Asked about the taped-off section of the lot, which went well beyond the fireworks set-up area, Palmer and Taylor explained that it was called the “fallout area.” Taylor added that this space was designated for firework debris, known as fallout, which can and often does land there during the show.
“You know, if we were in Mexico,” Taylor said, “and something falls on you, they consider it to be a blessing — they’d think they’d been blessed by God. But here in America, you call the nearest 10 lawyers and see who gives you the best deal.”
At around 3 p.m. on the Fourth, family representatives were already setting up chairs and blankets in and around the mall area for prime views of the fireworks show, which wouldn’t begin until after 9 p.m.
At around 6 p.m., 5-year-old Lennon Barrett was shouting that her favorite part of the holiday was the fireworks.
Closer to showtime, Kelli Gomez was hanging out with her son, Cruz, in the back of the family truck waiting for her husband and the festivities to begin.
“We just wanted to have, you know, a nice time with the family and celebrate and enjoy the fireworks and just build memories,” Gomez said.
Throughout the evening, cars continued to fill the mall parking lot, many playing music as people relaxed in lawn chairs, danced, played games and eagerly awaited the show that Taylor, Palmer and company spent the day setting up.
As the first fireworks lit up the sky that night, it wasn’t just a celebration of the Fourth — it was perhaps the beginning of a new chapter in a family legacy.
