New Delhi: Wildfires have burnt almost 2 million acres of California this year, leading to some of the worst air quality in the world. Reports have emerged that one of the latest wildfires was caused by a gender-reveal party, burning more than 8,600 acres of land since Saturday.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection revealed in a notification that the El Dorado fire, burning near Oak Glen in San Bernardino County, was caused by a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used during a gender-reveal party in the area.
A pyrotechnic device is one that generates smoke and artificial fireworks and is used in outdoor events. A typical device contains a mixture of chemicals such as sodium, barium, strontium, calcium and copper, and generates heat, smoke and reaction products, leading to colourful explosions like fireworks.
The history of gender-reveal parties
A gender-reveal party is an event during which the parents-to-be use different ways to reveal to friends and family the sex of the baby they are expecting. If the revelation involves pyrotechnics, it typically takes place in the form of an explosion that ends up leaving blue or pink smoke. If the smoke is blue, it means the expected child is a boy, and if pink, it is a girl.
The concept of throwing these gender-reveal parties was popularised in 2008, but it was a far safer affair. A blogger named Jenna Karvunidis cut a cake at their party, which had pink frosting to reveal that they were having a girl. However, people have since taken extreme methods in the name of innovative ideas to throw these parties, with often horrific consequences.
In a Facebook post, Karvunidis herself condemned people taking extreme measures which caused such deadly wildfire. She asked to stop having “these stupid parties”. “ Excuse me for having a cake for my family in 2008. Just because I’m the ‘gender reveal inventor, doesn’t mean I think people should burn down their communities,” she added.
This is not the first time a gender-reveal party has ended up burning down a forest. In 2017, another gender reveal party in Arizona sparked a wildfire that burnt nearly 47,000 acres and caused damage to the tune of more than $8 million. A party in Iowa in 2019, which involved the detonation of a pipe bomb, killed a woman, while in 2018, a man used his pet alligator to announce the gender of his child by placing a watermelon filled with blue jelly in its mouth, an act that led to major backlash and questions regarding animal abuse.
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