California Fire Is Latest Gender Reveal To Go Disastrously Wrong

TOPLINE

A smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used at a gender reveal party started the El Dorado Fire in California’s San Bernardino County this weekend, local fire department officials said in a statement Monday — it’s not the only gender reveal to start a fire or to cause other mayhem. Here are other gender reveal stunts that have gone horribly wrong.  

TIMELINE

chief critic

Jenna Karvunidis, a blogger known for popularizing gender reveal parties in 2008 when she and her husband cut a cake to reveal pink frosting, condemned the people who started the recent fire in a Facebook post. “The fire that evacuated parts of California is from a GENDER REVEAL PARTY,” she wrote Monday. “Stop it. Stop having these stupid parties.” Last July, she shared that her views on gender reveal parties have changed altogether, echoing what some critics have said. “Who cares what gender the baby is? I did at the time because we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t know what we know now – that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents,” she wrote in a popular Facebook post which has been shared more than 14,000 times. 

big number

8,600 acres. That’s how far the El Dorado fire had spread as of the latest update Monday morning, San Bernadino National Forest officials tweeted. Only 7% was contained at the time.

further reading

A Gender Reveal Party Sparked El Dorado Wildfire, California Authorities Confirm (Forbes)

Woman Who Popularized Gender-Reveal Parties Says Her Views On Gender Have Changed (NPR)