Luke offers semi-legal Seattle fireworks show

The organizers of Seattle’s Fourth of July Fireworks on Lake Union say there will be no show this year because they fell far short of raising the $500,000 One Reel said was needed to pull it off.

“The Family Fourth at Lake Union is a ‘No,'” said One Reel’s marketing director Aubry Bergauer.

KIRO Radio’s Luke Burbank is magnanimously offering to take the $50,000 that was donated online and put on a pretty impressive show of his own.

“You can still do kind of a cool show for $50,000,” Burbank said. “Think about the amount of Roman Candles you could buy. Go up to Boom City, or go down to the Muckleshoot Reservation.”

Burbank, a self-professed pyrotechnic expert, said he would revert to some of the skills honed over years of practice to put on his inaugural, slightly less legal Fourth of July semi-spectacular.

“We’ll come back with some stuff to blow your mind,” he said. And perhaps a few fingers. But without all those pesky permits, port-a-potties, security guards and other things required of the official show, Burbank said the only thing stopping his show is a little thing called the law.

“They’re only illegal if the police refuse to look the other way,” he said.

Of course, some compromises would be in order. Instead of the mortars that propel the magical fireworks hundreds of feet in the air, Burbank said he might have to resort to strapping some bottle rockets on the side of some of the bigger fireworks you can get on the reservation. And he’ll have to borrow his brother-in-law’s boat, since he won’t be able to afford one of those big barges they usually use to stage the fireworks. By then a hole in the boat should be patched.

“It looked like the patch was going to hold,” Burbank said. “I bet we can get a heck of a crowd down there and have an unforgettable event.”

After all, 50 grand is nothing to sneeze at.