It’s a girl and nearly a disaster.
A fire sparked in the Jolly Lake area near Mt. Baldy Resort, is believed to have come close to being the latest among a growing number of locations where gender reveal parties have gone terribly awry.
Area resident, Rob Iezzi, said he was with a group of people about to take a lake dip when he became involved in what he now believes was a celebration-turned-fire-fight.
“A lady pulled up on a quad and yelled there was a fire down the road,” Iezzi said. “We were all on our side-by-sides, and we went there to put out the fire.”
The community at Mt. Baldy is no stranger to fire. Just two years earlier they were on evacuation order when flames threatened their community so those who call the area home through the summer get yearly training on what to do, Iezzi said.
“Before we got up that way we passed a huge group of people, and when we got to the fire, people said (they) having a gender reveal party.”
He said the pink dust on the ground was a tip that the parents-to-be, whoever they may be, were about to get a girl and potentially start a wildfire.
“I heard they were using Tennerite, an explosive you shoot with a rifle, an hour earlier,” he said.
He added that nobody fighting the fire admitted to shooting off the incendiary pink dust, but it was the prevailing belief that the group he’d spotted earlier were behind the blaze.
“There was pink powder all over,” he said.
Brett Mykyte, another member of the Mt. Baldy strata council, was also knocking down the fire and also witnessed the pink powder.
“There was pink residue leftover from when they did this and it just ignited a little bit underneath the log,” Mykyte said.
“It’s pretty dry up there, and probably not the smartest thing to be doing. I don’t know much about Tannerite but I know it’s a popular thing to do these days with gender reveal parties.”
The group managed to knock down the blaze with rudimentary tools and a lot of elbow grease. As they were leaving a BC Forestry Fire Warden came by, called in the professionals, and made sure the stump that had been the root of the issue went out.
The only problem was that Iezzi and his friends were a little late to the community Fire Smart meeting, a must for those in the community given that they don’t have a fire department.
Luckily, however, they’d just had some hands-on training.
BC Wildfire information officer Kim Wright said there was a spot fire sparked in the Belchrome Forest Service Road area on Sunday and locals knocked it down shortly after it was spotted.
The cause is under investigation.
If the fire was human-caused, the person who started it could be issued a violation ticket for up to $1,150, plus they can be fined up to $100,000 and also responsible for costs, Wright said.