Photos by KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

Bennie Russell prepares fireworks. In addition to his job as Franklin County fire marshal, Russell works with Melrose Pyrotechnics setting off fireworks.

Members of Melrose Pyrotechnics prepare fireworks for the Martinsville Speedway Friday night fireworks display. This year's show was 18 minutes long and featured 382 firework shots, a third of which were used for the finale.

Bennie Russell has studied explosions. He's been through bomb school. And in his 16 years as the Franklin County fire marshal, he has investigated suspicious and deadly fires.

So it may not be a surprise that he's taken up pyrotechnics as a hobby.

"I'm a pyrotechnic maniac," he said. For the past 10 years, Russell has spent his Fourth of July lighting up the sky. He and a handful of others sent up Friday night's light show at the Martinsville Speedway. Tonight, they'll be lighting up the sky at Hidden Valley Country Club.

Russell, 58, got his start with fireworks about 10 years ago when he trained at Melrose Pyrotechnics in Catawba, S.C. He is certified through the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

His fascination with light displays started as a child growing up in rural North Carolina.

His family lived too far out in the country to get to Fourth of July shows, and the only fireworks he'd seen were on the family's black-and-white television.

When he was 13 or 14, he saw his first fireworks show in Greensboro.

"To see something that had all these colors and make all that noise, that was kind of neat," he said.

As a student at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, he and his fraternity brothers frequently crossed into South Carolina where they could stock up on fireworks that were illegal back home.

He can laugh now about what they got away with, but as the fire marshal, he takes illegal fireworks seriously, he said.

About 10 years ago, he started working shows with Steve Eanes, who is now a major at the Henry County Sheriff's Office. The two still work for Melrose Pyrotechnics and make about $10 an hour when they do a show.

Their biggest shows are the Fourth of July celebrations, but they also do fireworks for weddings and sporting events, and on New Year's Eve, Russell said.

Preparing for shows takes hours. Russell and a few other workers set up racks that hold the mortar tubes upright. Then they wire the tubes to a computer that is used to ignite the shell, rocketing it into the air.

The technicians, dressed in flame-retardant clothing to protect them from fallout, sit away from the racks with the computer board.

Some fireworks are still hand-lit. Technicians use flares or propane torches to light the fuse and then lie down a few feet away so they don't get hurt.

They like to start off slow, launching a mortar every seven seconds, Russell said. As the show progresses, they send up the fireworks with more frequency.

Toward the end, they have a false finale, and just when the crowd thinks it is over and starts cheering, they cut loose, launching hundreds of fireworks.

Russell said the finale usually uses one-third of the fireworks in the entire show.

Russell's hobby ties in well with his day job, said Daryl Hatcher, Franklin County's director of public safety.

"His knowledge is something we'll always draw on," he said.

When Russell gets calls from residents who say they've found a weird coconut-looking thing, he knows it's a fireworks shell and knows what to do with it, Hatcher said.

When Russell is investigating a person or business suspected of having illegal fireworks, he can immediately identify what's OK and what's not.

And when residents or companies come to him with requests for firework permits, he can talk to them about safety, Hatcher said.

Russell is well aware of the damage that fireworks can inflict, though it hasn't stopped him from doing several shows a year.

"I look at it like fighting fire," he said. "I'm not afraid of fire, but I have a huge respect for fire."