Video has emerged of the moment a U.S. Border Patrol agent’s gender reveal party sparked an Arizona wildfire that burned 47,000 acres and caused $8.2million worth of damage.
Dennis Dickey, 37, pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor violation for starting the Sawmill Fire near Green Valley in April 2017.
The off-duty border agent ignited the blaze by firing a rifle filled with Tennerite, which is a highly explosive substance, at a target at his wife’s gender reveal party.
Footage of the incident, which was only released by the U.S. Forest Service on Monday, shows the words ‘Boy’ and ‘Girl’ written across the target.
Dennis Dickey, 37, pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor violation for starting the Sawmill Fire near Green Valley, Arizona in April 2017 at his wife’s gender reveal party
The target was supposed to explode and reveal a burst of color to indicate the sex of Dickey’s unborn child.
But instead, the target was obliterated when Dickey opened fire and immediately caused the raging fire. A flash of blue indicated their baby is a boy.
The footage shows the flames quickly spreading before a man can be heard yelling: ‘Start packing up, start packing up’.
The explosion set fire to a patch of dry grassland, which rapidly spread to cover 47,000 acres of land.
It took one week and nearly 800 firefighters to help put the fire out.
The target was supposed to just reveal a burst of color to indicate the sex of Dickey’s unborn child but it sparked a huge wildfire instead
The off-duty border agent ignited the blaze by firing a rifle filled with Tennerite, which is a highly explosive substance, at a target at his wife’s gender reveal party
The explosion set fire to a patch of dry grassland, which rapidly spread to cover 47,000 acres of land
The fire is estimated to have caused around $8.2million worth of damage.
Dickey immediately reported the fire to law enforcement and cooperated with them.
He is set to pay $220,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor charge of causing a fire without a permit.
‘It was a complete accident,’ Dickey told U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie A. Bowman at the time.
‘I feel absolutely horrible about it. It was probably one of the worst days of my life.’
No injuries were reported in the fire but several residents were evacuated from their homes as a precaution.
It took one week and nearly 800 firefighters to help put the fire out
The fire is estimated to have caused around $8.2million worth of damage
No injuries were reported in the fire but several residents were evacuated from their homes as a precaution