Gender Reveal Party Ignites Fire, Destroys More Than 45,000 Acres

Boy or girl? Either way, this Arizona couple sure wasn’t expecting a fire.

Newly released video from the U.S. Forest Service shows the moment a gender reveal party went horribly wrong when what should have revealed whether Border Patrol Agent Dennis Dickey and his wife, Rita, were having a boy or a girl actually ended in a fiery explosion.

It happened in April 2017, when the Tuscon couple invited friends and family to gather to watch them shoot a rifle at explosive powder in a target. 

Moments after the target exploded in a magnificent blue cloud – revealing Rita was pregnant with a boy – the blaze spread, eventually reaching the Coronado National Forest and destroying over 45,000 acres of land, racking up more than $8 million in damages.

Dickey was off duty at the time and reported the fire right away. He told a judge that it was a complete accident, calling it the worst day of his life.

He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation in September and was sentenced to five years of probation in addition to paying $220,000 in restitution.

In May, a San Francisco grandfather-to-be fell victim to another gender reveal fail, when the baseball containing blue powder hit his head, revealing he would be having a grandson.

But Scott McCauley took it in stride.

"He was just so excited even though his forehead was bleeding a little," father-to-be Max McCauley joked in an interview with InsideEdition.com.

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