In the early weeks of September, at least 3.5 million acres of land had been destroyed in a forest fire that’s devastated parts of California. The cause of it? A gender reveal stunt that went terribly wrong.
What was described as a “smoke generating pyrotechnic device” had been used and sparked the El Dorado fire, spreading to about 7,000 acres of land. To add to that, California had also experienced a record heatwave that reached to its highest ever recorded temperature (49.4C).
Helicopters and rescue teams came to the aid of more than 200 people that had been trapped after the wildfire cut off popular roots that people usually took. This isn’t the first time that a similar event had started a wildfire as in April 2017, a gender reveal party hosted in Arizona also sparked a wildifre that lasted a week and burned through 45,000 acres.
One of the individuals of the stunt, Dennis Dickney was handed a five year probation and ordered to pay for the damages that had been done.
Art by: Yuu Uchida
18th September 2020
Abstract Column 