North Smithfield’s Richard Savaria, above, is a member of ‘Rich’s Incredible Pyro,’ which will display its ‘Wall of Fire’ today at the Rhode Island National Guard’s Airshow at Quonset Point. Last September, the team broke the world record for the longest ‘Wall of Fire’ with a distance of 6,632 feet.

By JON BAKER

NORTH SMITHFIELD — What Richard Savaria does for a living is … well, normal.

A 55-year-old family man from North Smithfield, he works fairly regular hours as a safety coordinator for the Woonsocket Post Office.
Then there’s his “hobby” — working with dynamite, gasoline, TNT and ammonia nitrate fuel oil and helping to build “Walls of Fire” with a team known as “Rich’s Incredible Pyro.”
Savaria and his cohorts will exhibit their special talents again today at the Rhode Island National Guard Open House & Airshow at Quonset Point in North Kingstown. He and at least five others from “Rich’s Incredible Pyro” spent hours on Thursday and Friday constructing a 1,000-foot wall, made with the aforementioned ingredients (including hundreds of sausage-sized dynamite “links”) to be detonated during the “Combined Arms Demonstration” of the event at about 2:45 p.m. today.
Call the “CAD” a mock seizure of an airfield.
How Savaria became involved with the utilization of explosives is a rather intriguing story, one that began when he was a kid growing up in Woonsocket. He became more intrigued over the years. That’s one reason he left Woonsocket High School as a junior in May 1971 and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“As a sergeant in the Marine’s 3rd Force Recon, my job was to destroy enemy strongholds in the water and on land in Vietnam,” he said with pride. “I gained a knowledge from the military of how to use explosives, including TNT and C4, which is a plastic explosive. I spent four years in the Marines, and later I became a fire medic in North Smithfield, and also worked as a volunteer bomb squad technician for the state fire marshal’s office in the 1980s.
“I can’t really say I’m fascinated by it; it’s kind of like a kid playing with firecrackers on the Fourth of July and seeing the final result,” he added. “I enjoy creating special effects. The whole idea behind what I do now is creating an illusion of the fire power of a war bird (military aircraft) currently flying without the danger of hurting an onlooker.”
It was about five years ago, at this same National Guard air show in Quonset, that he met Richard Gibson, a Chicagoan who developed the idea of Rich’s Incredible Pyro, which currently consists of 12 members hailing from across the United States and has performed worldwide.
“Richard (Gibson) is 65 now, and he’s been doing this for a long time,” Savaria said. “The big joke in our group is that, when he was about 5, he went through his parents’ medicine cabinet and made an explosive from what he found in it. He later became a member of the Army’s Special Forces in Vietnam.
“As we were talking at the air show five years ago, he asked me about my background, then – under his supervision — watched me work with explosives. He said I was a good worker and that I was safe, then said, ‘Why don’t you come aboard.’ I jumped at the chance; I thought it would be very exciting. It’s a blast, pardon the pun, to work with this group, which consists of 12 pyrotechnicians who come from California, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Illinois.
“I’ll tell you, it’s quite an honor to be the only one from New England,” he added. “It’s a tremendous thrill … This is like being a police officer with a gun, which is a dangerous weapon. Explosives are, too, but if you utilize very safe practices, you eliminate the risk.”
Without question, the “hobby” comes with rewards. At a like event in Columbus, Ohio last September, he met renowned pilots John Glenn and Chuck Yeager, not to mention the famed Tuskegee Airmen, an all-Black air corps from World War II.
That same month (Sept. 16), in Terre Haute, Ind., the team broke the world mark for the longest “Wall of Fire” with a distance of 6,632 feet. While doing so, it used over 3,750 gallons of fuel, 100 pounds of ANFO, 24 sticks of sausage-sized dynamite and over 8,000 feet of “Det-Cord.”
It also shattered the previous mark of 3,697 feet set by Explosive Effects of Australia at the Queensland International Air Show in May 2006.
Savaria made the final inspection and connection to that record-breaking wall, which is now listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
“That was an amazing accomplishment,” he beamed.
The wall to be detonated today in Quonset is merely one-sixth the length, but will delight fans, Savaria offered.
“We’ll simulate the strave of machine-gun fire from an aircraft; in this case, it will be an attack Blackhawk helicopter, but there will be multiple aircrafts involved, including a C-130 Hercules, Huey helicopters and other support crafts,” he said. “It has a speed of 20,000 feet per second, which is amazing.
“But I’ll be having as much fun as the crowd, as I love to be around aircraft, meeting new people and getting the chance to fly,” he added. “I will say this: In this job, you always learn something new.”
Maybe it’s not a hobby after all.