Worst Gender-Reveal Party Ever Caused $8 Million Brush Fire

Gender reveal: It's a boy! But the explosion set off all that tinder-dry
brush you see, causing an $8 million wildfire. 

Dennis Dickey wanted to throw a nice, explosive gender reveal party, as he and his wife were expecting a baby.

He had what he thought was a great plan.

As NPR and numerous other news outlets explained, Dickey placed Tannerite, a very explosive substance inside a target, which he would shoo with a high-velocity firearm bullet.

Tannerite makes an explosie powder that produces some water vapor and a thunderous boom. Not to mention flames and what not. You can get Tannerite powder that sprays in pink or blue for a gender reveal party.

I don't know what Dickey,  a Border Patrol agent, was thinking when he pulled this stunt for his friends. As you can see from the video, below, everything around on that hot Arizona April day looked super, super tinder dry. Just thinking about a lighted match would start a fire, you might imagine.

The big fire caused by a gender reveal party burns along an
Arizona ridgeline in 2017.

At the time, the area was under a Red Flag Warning, which means there's a high risk of wildfires. Winds at the time were gusting to 40 mph.

But Dickey fires his gun. A big spray of blue. It's a boy!! But immediate, the tinder dry vegetation goes up in flames. What else would you expect?

The resulting fire would soon consume 47,000 acres and cause $8 million in damage. I guess Dickey had an $8 million baby, huh?  

On the bright side, although residents of many homes were evacuated, firefighters prevented those homes from burning down.

To be fair, Dickey did report the fire right away, but it was still too late. The fire quickly spread out of control. He has agreed to pay restitution, but I don't know where he's going to come up with $8 million.

He's already ponied up $100,000 and will pay monthly installments of $500 over the next two decades, but that won't cover it. And so much for the baby boy's college fund.

He'll also be on five years of probation and appear in a public service announcement for the U.S. Forest Service.

Man Loses Leg While Blowing Up Stuff With Tannerite, Which Is Apparently A Thing

In this fuzzy photo, the guy holding the gun is about to lose
one of his legs by shooting a lawm mower packed
with Tannerite. Shrapnel sheared off one of his legs
below the knee.  

Today, we're on the "Hold my beer, Watch This!" beat, in which people, almost always guys do something stupid, usually involving guns, explosions, beer, bad planning or some combination of the above.

This time we go to Georgia, where we learn a 32 year old guy lost one of his legs below the knee in an accident. Frankly, a dopey accident, though I still feel bad the guy was injured so badly.

Apparently, something called Tannerite is a thing. It's perfectly legal to buy. It's made up of a couple chemicals that are fairly safe, except when you fire a high speed object into it, like a bullet.

Then it explodes dramatically. Good Ole boys seem to like to fire guns into objects loaded up with tannerite, because they make fun explosions. Dangerous ones, too.

So it was in Walton County, Georgia recently when some guys decided it would be fun to shoot a riding mower loaded with three pounds of Tannerite.

The inevitable happened. David Thomas Presley, 32, shot the mower, it exploded, and a piece of shrapnel blased off the lower half of one of his legs, says the Athens (Georgia) Banner-Herald.

The Walton County Sheriff's office felt compelled to put the following message on their Facebook page. The sheriff's office was being Captain Obvious, but I guess you have to be nowadays.

Here's the Facebook message about Tannerite:

"Yes, it is legal and no, we can't make people stop doing it. But why folks, just why?.....Please adhere to the warnings and use this dangerous material with caution or maybe consider other less dangerous hobbies."

Fat chance of that. YouTube is full of videos of yeehaws blowing up things with Tannerite. And as noted in the Athens Banner-Herald, a Michigan man  blew something up with Tannerite and shrapnel tore off his leg, too.

I'm sure history will keep repeating itself with this stuff, too.

Here's a USA Today video report on the Georgia incident. A couple brief moments in the video aren't for the faint of heart.