Comme indiqué dans le rapport détaillé de Paul, les conditions météorologiques ont retardé le lancement du feu d'artifice de l'Angleterre. Le spectacle a débuté précisément à 22h29, un retard sans précédent. Mais était-il raisonnable de présenter le spectacle dans ces conditions?

À 22h00, le présentateur Michel Lacroix annonça que "pour des raisons évidentes de sécurité", le feu était reporté de quelques minutes en raison des vents qui soufflaient fortement à La Ronde. Peu après le début d'une accalmie, vers 22h15, on informa la foule que le spectacle allait débuter à 22h25. Mais lorsque les premières bombes furent lancées, il me semble que le vent était aussi puissant qu'à 22h00. Pendant le feu, le vent soufflait en direction des gradins, de nombreuses pièces incandescentes retombaient sur les spectateurs et, en tournant le regard vers la Spirale, nous pouvions voir une quantité impressionnante de résidus ardents se diriger vers le centre du parc.

Selon moi, des questions importantes méritent d'être soulevées. Sans jeux de mots, a-t-on jouer avec le feu samedi soir? Aurait-il été plus raisonnable, pour la sécurité du public, d'annuler le spectacle? Les responsables de La Ronde ont-ils appuyé fortement sur la diminution des vents observée vers 22h15 pour justifier leur décision, sans égard à leur éventuel retour en force? Je pense bien que dans des conditions extrêmes (ex.: des vents de 90 km/h ou des orages persistants), La Ronde n'hésiterait pas à annuler un feu. Mais dans un contexte où l'on chevauche la frontière entre l'acceptable et le danger potentiel, peut-on être assurés que la sécurité du public l'emportera sur les pressions financières (les coûts d'une annulation étant sans doute considérables)?

hrmm, je vois que ce que tu veux dire

mais ca toujours etait comme ca, il y avait des jours ou les dechets tombe a la ronde et dans les yeux des gens, j'en ai recu pleins en 2000

mais, le vent de samedi etait tres fort, ta raison

mais je suis pas sure s'il devait annuler

maybe Paul could answer this

Safety is always given the highest priority and it is the chief of the Fire Brigade who makes the call as to whether a display should be cancelled or interrupted. There is close collaboration with the Enviroment Canada office at Dorval airport, where they have Doppler radar which can detect both wind and rain. This was the situation on Saturday. A few minutes before 10pm, the winds exceeded the maximum 70km/h allowed, as well as being in a very unfavorable direction. The meteorologists at Dorval were able to advise that the strength of the gusts would diminish after 10 to 15 minutes, which they did, save for a couple of stronger gusts round about the time of the final commencement of the display.

I spoke to Darryl Fleming after the display and he told me that the fire chief was ready to cut the finale if it contained kamuro shells, for reasons of safety. Once nice feature of the FireOne software is that different shells and effects can be assigned a "safety number" from one to nine, based on their propensity to deposit burning stars and debris. Thus rockets are at level 9, due to their sticks and large kamuros are either 8 or 9, depending on their type. This allows the automatic elimination of all material which would cause a safety threat - the maximum threshold is set and everything above that number is removed from the firing list in real time.

The fact that it rained during the display helped the safety issue since it extinguished and burning debris before it could cause a threat to the audience. It was gratifying to hear that the Fire Chief was ready to cut the finale if it was to contain too many kamuros; in the end there was really only one right at the very end and the display concluded without incident, except for the ash and smoke, which is always to be expected, even at the best of times.

I firmly believe that the safety of the audience was given the highest priority throughout. In terms of cost, if the display had been postponed until Sunday evening, this would have been a relatively small loss since, compared to the potential injury claims if the audience had been put at risk. I think, in the end, the correct decision was made to proceed with the display, even though the late start was something of an anti-climax.

Just out of interest, I kept the piece of shell casing, that hit me as I was writing my report, as a souvenir of an exceptionally unusual evening!

Paul.

lmao @ Paul
i toke some debris in 2000

i still have them, alot lol

Thanks Paul for your professionalism, some
guys should make the same instead of getting
ridiculous.


ty...