Pyro Site Plan: What to Show and the NFPA 1123 Distances

Short answer: a pyro site plan is a scaled, north-up drawing of the display site that shows where the mortars are, where the debris will land, where the people will be, and the measured distances between those three — plus parking, roads, buildings, overhead lines, and anything that burns. NFPA 1123, the Code for Fireworks Display, requires one to be submitted to the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ — in most towns the fire marshal) before the display — in practice, with the permit application — and the AHJ approves the show against it.

The core distances are simple minimums: 70 feet per inch of shell diameter from the mortars to the spectators, 75 feet for ground pieces — and the AHJ can require more. In practice, what gets plans sent back is rarely the arithmetic. It is a sketch that is not to scale, a radius measured from the wrong point, or a parking lot nobody drew.

Fireworks display site plan requirements: what has to be on the drawing

NFPA 1123 says the site plan submitted to the AHJ shows the dimensions of the discharge site, the spectator viewing areas, the parking areas, and the fallout area, with the separation distances between them. Fire departments turn that sentence into a checklist. Combined, a plan that gets approved on the first pass shows:

1. The discharge site. Every mortar position or rack line with the shell size fired from it, the direction angled mortars are tilted, the ready-box and storage location, and where the operator fires from. Shells over 6 in. have to be pre-loaded and fired electrically or remotely, with the shooter and assistants at least 75 ft from the mortar or behind a sturdy barricade; if the crew stays at the firing position during the show, the code gives them a safety area at least 75 ft from the nearest mortar.
2. The display site boundary. The secured area, with its radius, drawn from the mortars. The radius is set by the largest shell in the show (next section). No spectators and no spectator parking inside it. Dwellings and other structures may sit inside it only with the AHJ’s and the owner’s approval, and only if they are unoccupied during the display or built to protect the people inside (noncombustible or fire-resistant construction).
3. The fallout area. The open ground where debris is intended to land. Spectators, vehicles, watercraft, and readily combustible material stay out of it. Tents inside the display site need the owner’s, operator’s, and AHJ’s approval (the 2026 revision loosened where they may stand) and cannot be occupied during the display.
4. The spectator line — where the front row actually stands, not where the park boundary is — with the distance to the nearest mortar written on the drawing in feet.
5. Everything the debris could reach. Public roads and rights of way, parking lots, residences, commercial buildings, churches, schools, nursing homes, fuel tanks, dry brush. Distances from the firing site to each, in feet.
6. Overhead objects. Shell trajectories must clear any overhead object by 25 ft, so power lines, trees, and light poles near the mortars go on the plan.
7. Ground pieces and low-level product — set pieces, fountains, mines, comets, cakes, Roman candles — each with the standoff its own rule gives it (next section), not the largest shell’s.
8. Likely wind direction. NFPA 1123’s own site-plan annex asks for it, and the ready boxes have to sit upwind of the mortars, so draw the arrow.
9. Access and protection. Fire apparatus access and the emergency-vehicle staging area, the fire extinguishers or hose line the sponsor is providing, security posts and barricades holding the perimeter, road closures.
10. Drawing hygiene. A north arrow, a scale bar or the measured distances written on the drawing, the site address, the show date, the sponsor and operator names, and the largest shell size on the plan. The inspector should be able to check any distance without guessing.

Water displays (barges, floating platforms) follow the same distances, measured from the mortars on the barge to the spectators; the 2026 edition adds rules for barges — no temporary barriers that block egress, and no crew duties that distract from the shoot.

The distances: 70 ft per inch of shell

The core rule for aerial shells is a minimum radius of 70 ft per inch of internal mortar diameter of the largest shell to be fired, measured from the mortars to the spectators. The mortars sit at the center, so the secured site is twice that across. The code’s table starts at 1 in., where the minimum is 75 ft rather than 70.

These numbers have been stable since at least the 2006 edition, but section numbers and the newer rules (fireballs, tents, barges) are edition-specific — the edition your state adopts is the one that governs.

Three things the table does not say out loud:

• The largest shell rules the whole site. A show that is 90 % 3-inch product and finishes with a few 6-inch shells is a 420-ft-radius site, unless the 6-inch mortars get their own discharge site with its own radius. That is the single most common reason a site that “always worked” suddenly does not fit the new finale.
• Angled mortars shift the circle, they do not shrink it. NFPA 1123’s distance table gives reduced distances on the side the mortars tilt away from, paid for with more distance downrange. Draw the tilt direction on the plan or the reduction does not apply.
• The code sets minimums; the AHJ sets the number. Prevailing wind, dry conditions, a crowd that can move, a road that cannot be closed — the fire marshal can and does require more. For the solid-fuel fireball effects added in the 2026 edition, the code itself requires a 20 % increase in audience separation when prevailing wind is toward the audience.

For the smaller product: ground display pieces of low hazard potential (lancework, gerbs, fountains, illuminations) need at least 75 ft from spectators and parking; those with greater hazard potential, such as large wheels with powerful drivers and items with large salutes, need 125 ft. Cakes and Roman candles are not ground pieces: they take the aerial-shell, comet, or mine distance for their tube size, doubled if the rack or holder cannot keep them in place through a malfunction. Non-splitting, non-bursting comets and mines that contain only stars get half the aerial-shell distance, 35 ft per inch.

Fireworks site plan template: why a form is not a plan

Most fire departments publish a “site plan” form: a lettered checklist and an empty box to sketch in. The checklist is genuinely useful — it is the AHJ telling you what they will look for — but the drawing is where plans fail. A freehand sketch has no scale, so the inspector cannot check the one thing that matters. A plan drawn on satellite imagery with real dimensions lets the inspector check it.

A worked example. Harbor Point Park, a fictitious waterfront park: 3-inch and 4-inch shells fired from the pier head, a 6-inch finale from a barge anchored 350 ft off the pier, spectators on the lawn and the parking deck. The 4-inch pier position needs 280 ft of clear ground; the barge’s 6-inch radius is 420 ft — which reaches back past the pier head and 70 ft onto the lawn. Either the barge anchors 100 ft further out, the front rope moves back, or the finale drops to 4-inch. That is a conversation to have with the client in April, on a drawing, not on the Fourth in front of the fire marshal — and the drawing is what settles it.

Drone show site plan: the same map, a different rulebook

If the show has drones in it — a drone light show, or pyro carried on drones (which needs its own FAA exemption on top of the waivers below: §107.36 prohibits a small unmanned aircraft from carrying hazardous material) — the site plan carries a second overlay. The FAA has no site plan form, but a drone light show flies under Part 107 waivers: §107.35 for one pilot operating multiple aircraft is the one every show needs, with §107.29 if the drones fly at night without anti-collision lights (show drones usually do), §107.51 if anything goes above 400 ft AGL, §107.39 if it flies over people, and an airspace authorization under §107.41 in controlled airspace. The waiver application and the operations manual behind it describe the flight area, the geofence, and the separation from people who are not part of the operation.

On the drawing, that means a flight area (a rectangle, fenced from the ground up), a start grid inside it, and a separation buffer around it, alongside the pyro circles. We covered the drone numbers in How much space does a drone show need?. The point here is that both layers go on one plan, because the fire marshal and the FAA are looking at the same lawn.

The permit: who signs what

• The AHJ issues the display permit against NFPA 1123 (as adopted by the state — many states adopt a specific edition by statute — Florida the 2018 edition, Indiana the 2006 — so ask which one your AHJ is reading). Lead time is set locally — Florida’s statute, for example, requires the application at least 15 days ahead, and larger venues often ask for a month or more. Expect a site inspection on show day.
• The operator is licensed or approved by the AHJ, at least 21 years old, with documented display experience. State pyrotechnician licensing sits on top of that in most states.
• ATF covers the product, not the site: display fireworks (1.3G) can only be received or transported by a holder of a federal explosives license or permit under 27 CFR Part 555, and storage follows Part 555’s magazine rules. The site plan usually marks the on-site ready box; the magazine is off-site.
• Insurance. Not in NFPA 1123, but in practice most AHJs and venues require a certificate of liability insurance naming them — amounts vary by jurisdiction.

Indoor and close-proximity pyro is a different standard: NFPA 1126, Standard for the Use of Pyrotechnics Before a Proximate Audience. Its plan is a venue diagram rather than a site plan, and the distances are device-based — each device at least 15 ft from the audience or twice its fallout radius, whichever is greater (§6.4.1), and concussion mortars at least 25 ft (§6.4.2) — with the same rule that the AHJ approves the plan before the show.

Drawing it in ShowPlotter

Everything above is circles, a polygon, and distances, on ground you cannot see from your desk. That is what the ShowPlotter planner draws:

1. Search the venue address. You get north-up satellite imagery of the real site — the pier, the parking deck, the tree line.
2. Drop a Pyro Fallout position on every discharge site. Each one is a firing position with a circle around it. Set the shell size and the radius fills in at 70 ft per inch (a 3-inch shell defaults to 210 ft, 64 m). The radius is a separate field, so when the AHJ asks for more, or you are drawing an angled-mortar offset, you type the number you were given — the circle follows.
3. Draw where the people are. An audience polygon for the crowd, a command zone for the crew, caution tape along the rope line, and markers for road closures, security posts, fire extinguishers, truck and crew parking, the stage, and a boat patrol for water shots. Every marker type prints in a key on the plan.
4. Measure what the inspector will measure. The measure tool draws a line with its length in the label; those lines and their distances print on the PDF.
5. Export the plan. A pyro-only plan exports as an A3 landscape PDF titled Pyro Site Plan, with the map, the show date, duration, wind limits, cloud level and visibility, the client’s site-prep checklist, and the map key — your logo and colors on it if you have set them. Add contacts and a run of show and the production sheet prints as page two. Once the plan is saved, the crew gets it as a read-only link that opens on a phone.

What it does not do, so you are not surprised: it draws the fallout circle you specify around each firing position — it does not compute angled-mortar offsets, shrink the circle on one side, or hold a database of state rules. There is no north arrow or scale bar printed on the export yet; the imagery is north-up and the measure lines carry the dimensions. And it is planning software, not an interpretation of the code: the radius it defaults to is NFPA 1123’s minimum, and your AHJ’s number wins.

Drawing the plan and exporting the PDF need no account. Saving it and sending the crew the read-only phone link take a free account.

Frequently asked questions

What is a pyro site plan?

A scaled drawing of the fireworks display site that shows where the mortars are (the discharge site), where the debris will land (the fallout area), where spectators, parking, roads, buildings, and hazards are, and the measured distances between them. NFPA 1123 requires it to be submitted to the authority having jurisdiction — usually the fire marshal — before the display, in practice with the permit application, and the AHJ approves the display against it.

How far do fireworks have to be from the audience?

Under NFPA 1123, aerial shells need a minimum radius of 70 feet per inch of internal mortar diameter between the mortars and spectators: 210 ft for 3-inch shells, 420 ft for 6-inch, 840 ft for 12-inch. Ground display pieces need at least 75 ft, or 125 ft for higher-hazard pieces. The largest shell in the show sets the radius, and the AHJ can require more.

What is the difference between the display site, the discharge site, and the fallout area?

The discharge site is where the mortars and firing crew are. The fallout area is the open ground where debris is intended to land, sized by the 70 ft per inch rule and kept clear of spectators, vehicles, and combustibles. The display site is the whole secured area — discharge site, fallout area, and the separation distance out to the spectator line — with a radius at least as large as the largest shell requires. Spectator areas and parking are outside it by definition.

Is there a fireworks site plan template?

Many fire departments publish a one-page sketch form: a box for the drawing plus a checklist of what it must label — firing site, spectators, parking, residences, buildings, hazards, and distances in feet. A template is a checklist, not a drawing; the distances still have to be measured on the real site. A satellite-based planner produces the same drawing with real dimensions.

Does a drone show need a site plan too?

Yes. The FAA does not prescribe a site plan form, but a drone light show flies under Part 107 waivers — 107.35 for multiple aircraft is the essential one — and the waiver application and operations manual describe the flight area, the geofence, and the separation from people who are not part of the operation. A combined drone-and-pyro show puts both on one map.

ShowPlotter is planning software, not legal counsel. NFPA 1123 as adopted in your state, your AHJ, your ATF license, and — for drones — your FAA waiver govern the real distances and the real permit.