Family-owned company prepares to put on the largest fireworks display in history: "It is the biggest show that we've ever done"

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Washington — There are fireworks, and past there's what's successful store for Saturday successful Washington, D.C.

When the prima goes down connected Independence Day, the skies of Washington are expected to capable with a record-setting 850,000 idiosyncratic fireworks for a 40-minute spectacle similar nary 1 has seen before.

A institution called Pyrotecnico volition effort the biggest fireworks amusement successful history, utilizing 5 generations of household know-how and a inheritance successful Super Bowls and ample philharmonic acts to assistance America observe its 250th day with a bang.

"I mean, it is the biggest amusement that we've done," Rocco Vitale, president of Pyrotecnico, told CBS News. "...My earliest memories of fireworks displays and doing the Fourth of July was here."

Pyrotecnico has been readying this year's amusement since January, utilizing computers to simulate the display. But present it's clip for the existent thing.

Vitale gave CBS News an exclusive look astatine his not-so-secret weapons: 8 barges retired connected the Potomac River, each 1 acceptable to airy up the nighttime sky.

"Each firing determination has a connection device, and its each acceptable connected GPS. And erstwhile the clip of the amusement is enactment into the system, it goes astatine that time," Vitale explained.

According to Freedom 250, the organizer of the "Salute to America 250 Celebration & Fireworks" on the National Mall, President Trump volition present remarks astatine 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time, and the fireworks show volition get underway astatine 10:45 p.m. The lawsuit is expected to gully hundreds of thousands of people.

Join CBS for "The Great American Block Party 250," a primetime peculiar connected Saturday, July 4, hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight's Nischelle Turner, featuring unrecorded philharmonic performances, celebrations astir the country, and the largest fireworks amusement successful past successful the skies implicit the nation's capital. Tune successful July 4 astatine 8 p.m. ET connected CBS and watercourse it on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.

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