"Infernal Machine," "Thor's Hammer," "Overdose," "Burnout" -- Heidrun Fink knows them all. She's been working her way through this year's range of New Year's fireworks since March, setting them off during work hours, no less.

Fink, a woman in her mid-fifties, is an inspector with Germany's Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). Every year, she visits pyrotechnics factories in China and has new export-bound explosives shipped to Germany for safety testing. Here, she subjects the fireworks to intensive vibration, heats them to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), then blows them up at a special testing location in Horstwalde, near Berlin, the same place aerospace pioneer Wernher von Braun tested his rockets.

"We inspect around 150 new products there each year, but this year it was particularly interesting," Fink explains. A new type of fireworks is taking the market by storm: enormous batteries of explosives up to one meter (three feet) long and containing 150 individual explosives. Once ignited, these packages create a continuous fireworks display that lasts several minutes, with "flashing gold lances of fire," "thunderous sparkling clouds" and an impressive "crackling finale" -- pyrotechnicians' jargon that nearly calls to mind the Dadaist lyricism of wine critics.

One factor fueling this storm of pyrotechnics is a set of new EU guidelines that more than doubles maximum allowable net explosive content, from 200 grams (seven ounces) to a whopping 500 grams (18 ounces). Some manufacturers now offer fireworks sets that can be linked together to create an assemblage weighing more than six kilograms (13 pounds), at a price of over €100 ($130).

Firefighters Brace for Accidents

"We're very concerned about the new regulations," warns Wilfried Gräfling, chief of Berlin's fire department. "We're expecting more fires and more injuries." In past years, Berlin hospitals treated around 500 people for fireworks-related injuries each New Year's Eve, with the city's fire department responding to about 300 additional fires in the course of the night.

One item considered particularly dangerous this year is a type battery wheel that fires "bombettes," or small explosives, at angles of up as much as 15 degrees from vertical -- some of them at a machine gun's rate of fire and the decibel level of a Soviet rocket launcher.

When ignited on city streets, such fireworks often end up hitting windows, roofs and balconies, rather than the sky. They should only be set off in open fields -- but who bothers with such concerns after a couple glasses of sparking wine?

The new EU guidelines actually allow fireworks that launch at angles up to 30 degrees from vertical, but even companies within the German association representing the pyrotechnics industry consider that a bit extreme, and have voluntarily restricted themselves to a more cautious 15 degrees. Still, many manufacturers in other countries have fewer qualms.

"The trend as a whole is moving away from loud firecrackers," says Markus Schwarzer at Weco, a fireworks manufacturer. Germany, he explains, is a pyrotechnically divided country. Weco sells around 640,000 firecrackers of a type known as "Böller D," or "Banger D," each year, but fully two-thirds of these go to northern and eastern Germany. Southern Germans, on the other hand, seem to prefer quieter sorts of fireworks displays.

More Sophisticated Products Available

The latest rage is the use of electronic detonators and computer-operated remote controls, technology previously used only by professional pyrotechnicians. Now, the first remote-controlled detonators for hobbyists are hitting the market, making it possible to set off fireworks from afar. Specialists in the field, however, warn that these remote launch signals often are not encrypted, making it entirely possible for a driver to accidentally start not just his or her car, but also any fireworks nearby.

High-tech firms even offer skyrockets with built-in radio chips that make it possible to release their rain of stars with pinpoint precision from the ground. Christian Czech from Salzburg, Austria, is a pyrotechnician who has worked at the Four Hills Tournament, among other events, but he's contemptuous of the trend toward fancy digitalization. "That lacks the emotionality, the feeling!" he says.

Czech, 41, has been in this business for 23 years. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that by the time he retires, amateur aficionados will be designing their own fireworks displays on their smartphones and setting off environmentally responsible nitrocellulose fireworks sets by remote control, without the need for a lighter, or even much smoke or noise. For now, though, the night belongs to waste-producing noisemakers with names like "Burnout" and "Cliffhanger."

Fink, the materials inspector, has no plans to set off fireworks on New Year's Eve, which is, after all, her day off. In late January, though, she'll have the chance to check out the new collection for the 2012-2013 New Year, at the "Christmas World" trade fair in Frankfurt. There, Fink expects to see many new versions of the massive fireworks packages that are capable of shooting off more than 100 explosives.