CASTAIC - Michael Dirtzu Jr. wanted to go out with a bang.

So when the 52-year-old electronics technician and fireworks enthusiast died unexpectedly near his home in West Lake, Minn., his wife, Cynthia, started making arrangements.

What she discovered delighted her. A new business in Castaic called Angels Flight specializes in packing cremated remains into high-powered fireworks and launching the ashes into the night sky for an explosive memorial that rivals any Fourth of July display. "With Mike, nothing conventional would have worked for sending him off," said Cynthia Dirtzu, his wife of 23 years who arranged for a dozen relatives from Minnesota to come and watch the pyrotechnic display just off the beach in Marina del Rey.

Angels Flight's services, usually done just off the coast at Marina del Rey, involve taking the fireworks onto a boat just offshore and launching 20 shells, each containing some remains. The fireworks rival any professional spectacle.

Family members can either take a yacht onto the water or stand on the beach, and they have the option of choosing music.

Drobnis charges $3,500 to $3,900 per service and expects to do about 20 this year. His goal is to reach 50 ceremonies each year.

In fact, Angels Flight is just one of many business throughout the nation riding a new trend in "creative scattering" of human ashes.

From 1980 to 2002, cremation increased from 10 percent of all deaths to 28 percent. And in California, 46 percent opt for fire instead of burial, among the highest rates in the nation, according to statistics collected by the association.

The increase has resulted in more creativity among survivors as they decide what to do with a 7-pound urn containing a relative's remains, said Chan Tysor, president of Celestis Inc., a Houston scattering business that sends small capsules of ashes into outer space.

In 1997, Celestis made headlines by launching LSD guru Timothy Leary's ashes into "low earth orbit" in the cargo of a rocket launch.

"Cremation enables flexibility in terms of scattering options that were not possible in traditional casket burials," Tysor said. "It enables these creative options because the remains are inert material -- it's bone fragments, calcium phosphate. It can be easily divided among family members."

Fireworks displays and trips to space are just the beginning.

Aside from the staples, such as scattering ashes at sea and over the Rocky Mountains, there are many innovative alternatives.

A company in Chicago claims to turn cremated remains into diamonds, and another company mixes the ashes with epoxy and builds statues and trinkets. Yet another company mixes the "cremains" with oil paints to craft portraits.

(For information on Angels Flight, visit Aa href+"www.angels-flight.net">www.angels-flight.net. For information on cremation, visit www.cremationassociation.org

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