Recently I went to Lake Powell with some friends and on their houseboat I noticed they had three ginormous cans of corn. I thought to myself, hmm, that’s interesting, I wonder what Red’s planning on cooking up. Later that afternoon I found out. At Lake Powell it is fairly common for people to bring fireworks along for nighttime entertainment, but fireworks can’t be very environmentally friendly, right? But if you’ve got some time, patience, lots of space, and a few gigantic cans of corn, you can create a fairly environmentally friendly light show at your campsite.
The first night we were there, three of us made the trek up some rock formations to a spot that was a safe distance away from our campsite, but that was also easily visible. Setting up a corn bomb is apparently very simple: you just rip open a whole bag of charcoal, set a huge unopened can of corn on top of it, and light the charcoal. Red had heard that you had to use Kingsford Matchlight charcoal and didn’t believe it, so on this occasion we set up one corn bomb with a bag of Kingsford charcoal, and we set up another one some distance away with generic charcoal. We lit both of the corn bombs and returned to camp to make dinner and then sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
Red had said it would only take about 15 or 20 minutes for the bomb to go off, but we were all getting pretty tired and ready to go to bed before either corn bomb went off. Red’s wife said, “Yeah last time he said it would take 15 minutes, and we finally gave up and went to bed and heard them explode in the middle of the night.” Not long after she said that, the first corn bomb actually went off. What a sight it is to see a giant can of corn get so hot that it literally blows its top. One thing you will learn about corn bombs–blink and you’ll miss it!
As luck would have it, or maybe science, the first corn bomb to go off WAS the one that we made Matchlight. After watching the other corn bomb site for maybe another half hour, we finally gave up and went to bed. The next morning no one remembered hearing an explosion in the night, and the birds were feasting in the area of the first corn bomb, but ignoring the other site.
Later that day we took our final can of corn and another bag of Matchlight back up on the hill. At the first site we found a not completely burned bag of generic charcoal and a can of corn on its side. Did the corn fall off and expose the charcoal enough to allow it to just go out? Or was the generic charcoal of a lesser quality and went out on its own, leaving an unstable base for the corn that caused it to fall over? I’m afraid at this point we don’t know. What we DO know is that if you put TWO cans of corn on one bag of Matchlight, it is possible to blow them BOTH up! Maybe this is something they should test on Mythbusters. It is great fun to sit and watch with great anticipation, and to finally be rewarded with a loud bang and an explosion of corn and fire. The birds and other critters will enjoy the exploded corn, and you just have to go back to your launch site and gather any remaining charcoal debris and grab the corn can remains and add them to your recycling. Just make sure you watch from a safe distance away, and voila–eco friendly fireworks.