An ordinary gender reveal, what could go wrong?

When thinking of a gender reveal, you picture family and friends reuniting; everyone completely excited to find out the gender of the baby. However, Bennet Milloy thought the same thing until early September morning when their average gender reveal took a big twist. In other words, this twist was caused by a “pyrotechnic device” that created massive swarms of fire in California.

It was September 5, 2020 when the fire first started at 10:23 am. The gender reveal took place at the El Dorado in San Bernardino County where the fire began. It originated by a “smoke-generating pyrotechnic device.”

Freshman Antonio Orduno states,” The gender reveal fire was quite a shock to me when I heard about it. I was just thinking about how crazy it is that one single party can lead to this huge problem.”

An award- winning journalist, Matthew Keys tweeted on September 6,” This was just two years ago, the last time a gender-reveal party caused a wildfire (this was in Arizona). The same thing happened near San Bernardino according to CAL FIRE. #ElDoradoFire.”

“I was shocked that anyone would think that it was a good idea to use a pyrotechnic device in a dry field, in the middle of the dry season, during a heat wave, in the middle of a pandemic,” Cal Poly Pomona Adjunct Professor of Sociology, Criminology, and Vanguard University Adjunct, Professor Gerstenberger stated. “I’m disappointed that this couple did not have better judgement.”

“They did the gender reveal on the worse red flag day and worse time,” Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Leon Dunn revealed. “It was over 100 degrees and the fire weather; that is the worst time to do anything outdoors that can cause a wildfire.”

But while gender reveals have been around for a while, they didn’t start out this dangerous. Gender reveal parties first began in the late 2000’s. It was popularized because of Jenna Karvunidis in 2008, beginning with a simple cake.

Jenna had blogged about her gender reveal party, which featured a cake with the color of her unborn baby’s sex, and she began to observe that the amount of gender reveals getting thrown expanded a few years after her own. She has since come out as against gender reveal parties.

“Themes like ‘guns or glitter’ … perpetuate heavily gendered ideologies about what boys and girls are allowed to enjoy and excel at,“ Professor Gerstenberger claimed. “It seems that we are placing expectations on children before they even enter the world.”

As time expanded and ideas expanded, these gender reveal parties became not as innocent as they were in the start. Gender reveal parties such as using a live alligator to reveal the gender of their baby, dad broke his ankle, and a couple accidentally sets car on fire can be found online.

“And this often starts with ‘innocent’ parties like gender reveals,” Professor Gerstenberger professed.

Unfortunately, the El Dorado Fire wasn’t even the first gender reveal wildfire to occur.

On April 23, 2017 Dickey and his wife had planned out a gender reveal party in the middle of the desert. Unexpectedly when shooting the explosive, flames bursted out spreading rapidly and burning over 46,991 acres.

US Attorney’s Office stated the family had a highly explosive matter called “Tannerite” and striked it with a high-powered rifle. The family was charged with $8,188,069 in replacement.

“Even though the source of the fire was shocking (a gender reveal party), I’m not that surprised by a massive wildfire occurring. There have been lots of wildfires these past few years in California, so I guess you can expect at least one every year. People should start being more cautious with their actions or else it can start huge problems like this” claimed Antonio Orduno.

The El Dorado Fire had burnt approximately 3 millions acres of land. Firefighters tried their hardest to stop the fires and control it before it spreaded even more. Since then more than 600 firefighters have been sent to fight this fire, along with engines, aircrafts and helicopters.

Los Angeles Fire Department Captain, Leon Dunn stated, “We had to send resources to help another agency because of how big, how it spread, and the homes that are endangered. So we sent out people from our city to help out. And it affected our department, people risking their lives to go to another city and help; which we always do because of course they come to our city and help too.”

Wind is a big issue when it comes to wildfires. The wind spreads the fires rapidly, and this is no help to the firefighter.

“Firefighters need to be more accountable than normal, we don’t need to go by ourselves, and always have someone by you just for protection and safety, in case anything happens,” Leon Dunn stated.

The fires are not only dangerous for the firefighters and people near the fires, however, as gigantic smoke arises from the mountains and ash sprinkles on cars, Californians were facing this deadly wildfire from the Northern part of California.

People were having to evaluate due to the unhealthy air quality and fires. Over 21,000 Californians have had to evacuate.

“My Grandma found it a bit difficult to breathe every morning she went to work and when she returned home,” stated Antonio Orduno. “As for everyone else, the smell was just absolutely awful, ash covered all the cars, and the sun and sky looked very red/orange.”

Not only do people have to leave their houses, but so has wildlife. Over 1,000 animals have been rescued so far from the deadly wildfire.

“It has been devastating to the environment, the air quality, and many neighborhoods in CA. I think it will take a long time to rebuild. Not to mention the spike in Covid-19 cases that may result from people being displaced from their homes,” Professor Gerstenberger stated.

Deadly wildfires in California have caused residents to stay indoors because of all of the ashes. Starting in mid August fire season had officially started. All over the state thousands of acres of land are burning, some caused by lightning, heat, dry land, but one in particular was caused by a gender reveal party.

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