I should have sworn off Roman candles after the state troopers set that moose on fire.

The 1998 incident, reported in Mike Doogan's column in the Anchorage Daily News, with an accompanying photo, is now the stuff of legend. It started when Alaska State Troopers Peter Mlynarik and Sven Skille responded to a complaint of a moose acting like it owned a backyard off Dimond Boulevard.

The two troopers had unsuccessfully attempted to squeeze the moose into a nearby greenbelt by yelling and bluff-charging it. That didn't work, so it was time to unholster the big guns.

Roman candles

A Roman candle is a firework consisting of a stiff, rolled paper tube holding eight to 10 flammable projectiles that shoot up to 50 or 60 feet before detonating with a loud crack.

I was the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Anchorage-area wildlife biologist from 1994 to 2010, responsible for managing interactions between people and wild animals. The management biologist before me, Dave Harkness, used to buy Roman candles by the case. He'd hand them out to people who complained about moose loitering in their yards or posing a threat to their kids.

Roman candles can be a good way to put the fear of man in a moose -- but not always.

Wikipedia claims the "star" is propelled out of the tube "like a bullet from a gun." Not exactly, but you wouldn't want to light one and slide it up someone's pants leg. Or maybe you would, but it wouldn't be right.

One of the great balls of fire launched by the troopers in 1998 buried itself in the long guard hairs of the moose's shoulder, setting the hairs afire. Fortunately, the moose appeared to be unscathed. According to a witness, Caren Hoeft, "The moose put out his own fire by shaking real hard a couple of times."

I inherited the idea of hazing moose with Roman candles from my predecessor. It was clearly a better option than either shooting the moose or pressing close enough to get myself stomped. However, I soon realized the downside.

I once asked a young assistant named Chris to chase a moose away from Dimond High School. He grabbed a fistful of Roman candles on the way out the door. I cautioned him to wear heavy leather gloves and be safe. Later, he admitted to being distracted by a bevy of coeds. He realized that he was pointing the wrong end of the tube towards the moose only after the first flaming ball ricocheted off his torso.

I'd like to remind impressionable readers that Roman candles are not designed to be held in one's hand after they are lit. Trust me, I was a professional.

A new assistant

After years of using Roman candles, I had almost weaned myself off pyrotechnics by the time I trained a new assistant.

They just weren't safe, especially when running on ice with one lit in each hand while, at the same time, trying to dodge a panicky moose. Occasionally a flaming ball would erupt from the side of the tube. Stars could ricochet from trees and fences. And a disconcerting number of Anchorage residents leave plastic containers of gasoline up against their homes and sheds.

My new assistant, Jessy Coltrane, was with me the last time I used a Roman candle. She had responded to a complaint from Chugach Electric Association. According to building security, a bull moose was charging customers trying to enter or exit their office building and warehouse complex on Electron Drive.

Jessy found the bull stationed at one of the main entrances. It was late spring. The moose was skinny and testy, fed up with six months of winter. It had found a warm spot on the sunny side of the building and wasn't willing to budge.

Sometimes you can make an urban moose move by clapping your hands and waving your arms. Other times, it requires fire and brimstone.

With a little luck the moose decamps for the nearest tree line. Sometimes it becomes an exercise in high-stepping hilarity, particularly if your partner is forced to dive behind a tree. Every once in a while the moose stands its ground and just gets more and more pissed off.

The only certainty is that when a moose finally bolts, it is seldom pointed in the direction you'd like it to go.

Jessy tried the standard formula -- clapping and waving, which didn't work. Then she called me for backup. I brought a well-stocked tool kit: slingshot, pepper spray, Roman candles, 12-gauge shotgun and a plastic "hydrobolic water launcher."

Every skirmish is a little different. This moose was silhouetted against windows. Although the slingshot would have been my first choice, firing any sort of a projectile seemed like a bad idea. Because the moose was nearly leaning on the building, deploying the pepper spray was also inadvisable; we didn't want to cause an evacuation. Recalling the troopers' experience, we chose water over fire. I charged the water launcher from a bucket in the pickup bed and shot a thick stream at the moose's head. The moose shook it off and laid his ears back.

The more we pressed it, the more agitated the moose became. Employees were popping heads out of nearby doors. Customers were scurrying toward the parking lot. With every passing minute the bull became more agitated, until it was too dangerous for us to leave it be.

Eventually, the moose scooted along the grassy strip in front of the building and trotted briskly through the parking lot. We followed it in the pickup.

The bull stopped about 200 yards from the building, near the railroad tracks. He was still mulling over returning to the sunny spot. One more shove seemed in order, and it was finally safe to employ the Roman candles.

Powder burns

Almost fearless and always gung-ho to try something new, Jessy was a little unsure about using fireworks on a moose for the first time. She didn't know which end to light, for example. This is an important safety feature of the Roman candle. It may be the only one. A lit fuse should always point away from the user. Because, once lit, a Roman candle is designed to disgorge its explosive charges until it's empty.

Our fireworks were perhaps a decade old, and sometimes the fuse fizzled out. Or fewer than 10 stars ignited. Or the stars were propelled considerably less than 50 feet, sometimes dribbling slowly from the end of the tube like flaming drops of oil dripping out of a hose. You never knew.

Unlike Dirty Harry, a moose can't count the number of rounds you've fired, but inner city moose instinctively recognize the futile brandishing of an empty weapon. The simple solution was to carry a handful and light several at once.

We emptied the contents of several candles in the bull's general direction. The stale pyrotechnics didn't get close to the moose, but the pops and cracks inflamed and vexed it further. The bull was just far enough from the truck to be out of range, and we weren't dumb enough to venture far from our metal bulwark. I circled back to the pickup for more Roman candles and the shotgun.

We armed ourselves for the finale. Handing Jessy the fireworks, I loaded cracker shells and rubber slugs in the 12-gauge. She lit several candles, already a pro, and we fired a medley of explosives, a pyrotechnic phalanx. Unlike Roman candles, a cracker shell fired from a shotgun can fly more than a hundred yards. The moose snorted and kicked violently at the cracker shells exploding near its hooves. Then, stung by a rubber slug, it charged. We dashed around the open doors of the truck, leaped into the cab, and slammed them shut.

The moose veered toward my side, and 800 pounds of snorting moose hurtled past, almost clipping my side-view mirror. A close call.

I didn't have time to fully exhale before an abrupt flash-crack lit up the cab, and my right cheek was stung with gunpowder residue. Fortunately, the muzzle of the Roman candle was pointing at the floor. Also to Jessy's credit, she opened the door and tossed the tube without checking to see if the moose was bearing down on her side of the truck.

Untying the knot

I wish this story ended here, because igniting balls of gunpowder in an enclosed space was hilarious after we blinked a few times and shook the sparks off our clothes.

But every good tale needs both a climax and a denouement, an untying of the knot.

The bull arced back across the parking lot and spun about to face us in front of another building. Surrounded by high chain-link fences and asphalt, standing stiff-legged near a door, it wasn't willing to be pushed an inch farther. I stepped toward it; it stepped toward me.

Tamped into a corridor between a fence and building, the moose was almost incandescent, ready to shoot down the alley like a star from a Roman candle. One spark -- the next person who walked in or out of the building -- might be enough to set it off.

I retreated a few steps, pulled the shotgun out of the cab, and loaded four slugs. When the moose lowered its head and started accelerating toward its chief tormenter -- me -- I shot it between the eyes. The bull collapsed and started kicking, drawing each heavy hoof slowly up to its belly before flailing it explosively and repeatedly across the asphalt.

Instead of shooting again, I knelt by the moose's head. I gently touched an eye to check its reflexes. I laid my palm on its muzzle.

A slug in the brain always brings a moose straight down, but it often kicks for a few seconds, rarely as long as a minute. If it can't lift its head and its eye doesn't blink when touched, a second or third shot isn't going to make the moose stop kicking.

Most of the moose I shot during my career had broken legs or other mortal injuries. I didn't shoot uninjured moose often, perhaps one a year on average. This may have been the only time I shot one that I had agitated to the point of no return. Most of the others were fired up when I arrived, already too explosive for me to walk away from.

Responsibility is a double-edged sword. I've often wondered if by leaving this moose alone we might have avoided shooting it. The situation in front of the office building seemed to present a high probability of someone surprising or approaching the moose too closely. A similar scenario unfolded on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus in 1995, and the moose killed a man with a powerful kick as he approached a building entrance.

Jessy and I were often asked to chase moose out of a yard or away from a building. We realized that this could exacerbate the problem and urged greater tolerance and restraint. But every once in a while we still walked into a life-or-death situation where it was more acceptable to shoot the moose than to risk human injury.

Jessy, who remained my assistant for eight years, was a quick study. After I retired, she became the Anchorage-area biologist and served five more years with distinction. I recently learned she has accepted a similar job in Montana. I'd like to assure her new supervisor that she never carried a lit Roman candle into the cab of a pickup again. To the best of my knowledge.