Everybody loves a good 4th of July fireworks display, but fewer people realize the amount of work that goes into pulling it off.

As a kid, I loved 4th of July fireworks -- the lights, the sounds, the sense of danger as debris rained down, the cheers and applause of the crowed watching around me. But -- perhaps due to the natural curiosity of boyhood in me -- I was always curious about the the behind the scenes. Who was launching the fireworks? Where were they launching them from? Was it dangerous there, too? How did they fire off so many fireworks consecutively for so long?

To this day, I've never actually seen fireworks launched for a display larger than the ones you can buy and take home to shoot off yourself. Maybe you haven't, either.

Here's a bit of a peek at what goes on behind the scenes pulling of a 4th of July display in St. Cloud (video courtesy our sister station WJON).