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The fireworks company that left the Red, White & Blue Festival without a show is working through its second bankruptcy in just over a decade. A.M. Pyrotechnics LLC owes more than $1 million to fewer than 50 creditors, court records show.
The Buffalo, Missouri, company filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition Feb. 27 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Missouri. The 45-page filing was its second Chapter 11. The first came in July 2014.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a form of reorganization. It lets a business keep operating while it works out a court-supervised plan to pay down its debts over time.
It differs from Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which shuts a business down and sells its assets to repay creditors.
Because the company filed under Chapter 11, it stayed in business and could keep taking work while the case moved through court.
Owner Aaron Mayfield said the move was a reorganization, not a shutdown. In a written statement to the Springfield Business Journal, he called the case “part of a structured reorganization process” and said the company was weighing options for its future. He declined to discuss specific creditors or claims, citing the active court case.
A.M. Pyrotechnics was founded in 1997 and is a major North American seller of fireworks and designer of public displays.
The filing lists about $1.4 million in property, including more than 178 acres of land, much of it pledged as loan collateral. It lists roughly $939,000 in debts.
The biggest debts include about $115,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes to the IRS and about $103,000 to Arkansas-based Dominator Fireworks. The Dominator debt is listed as disputed and predates 2014. The company also owes about $5,000 in unemployment taxes to the Missouri Department of Labor.
Other debts include business loans and trade vendors. Among them is $55,000 owed to Mayfield Brothers Fireworks of Pleasant Hope.
The company has also drawn attention for two deadly fires. An employee died after a nighttime warehouse explosion in July 2018. Another employee, Chad Eaves, died in a fire the morning of Nov. 26, 2025, and state officials could not determine the cause.
A.M. Pyrotechnics had handled the festival’s fireworks for 25 years. Chamber President Dani Pugsley said the Chamber paid the company in full last year for this year’s show, as it had in past years. Paying a year ahead allows time to secure the permitting and insurance a large public display requires.
The crew never arrived, and repeated calls went unanswered. Local businesses, Premier Pyrotechnics and the Arkansas state fire marshal’s office stepped in, and the show went on Saturday at Arkansas State University-Mountain Home.
Mountain Home was not alone. Pugsley said she learned this week that 31 communities were affected by the company’s failure to deliver this season, and that Mountain Home was the first to come forward.
Pugsley said the affected clients were never warned. She said the company was supposed to notify them and that no one in her network heard anything before crews failed to appear.
Pugsley said the owner emailed her the morning after the festival’s first press release. She described it as a generic message that apologized, offered to reschedule or invited recipients to join a lawsuit against the company. The Chamber intends to pursue the money it paid, she said.
The company’s Google business listing showed it as temporarily closed this week.
A creditors’ meeting in the case was held by phone April 7, court records show.
