A couple’s plan to reveal their baby’s gender went up not in blue or pink smoke but in flames when the device they used sparked a wildfire that burned thousands of acres and forced people to flee from a city east of Los Angeles.
The fire prompted evacuations in parts of Yucaipa, a city of 54,000, and the surrounding area. Water-dropping helicopters were brought in but the fire has proven stubborn — it grew to 11.5 square miles (30 square kilometers) by Monday morning and more than 500 firefighters on the scene only had minimal containment. No homes have burned and no injuries reported.
It's the latest in what has become a lengthy list of tragedies at events where typically smoke, confetti, balloons or other colored objects are used to reveal the soon-to-be-born child’s biological sex — pink for girls and blue for boys. Sometimes the made-for-social-media gatherings are spectacles and include explosives and even guns, and at least one had deadly consequences.