Man pleads guilty in Arizona fire case

In April 2017, the Sawmill Fire swept across the dry grasslands of southern Arizona, rapidly burning a charred path through open rangelands and engulfing the mesquite-covered foothills of the Santa Rita mountains. The blaze ultimately spread over 47,000 acres of land, forcing residents to evacuate their homes as roughly 800 firefighters fought to get it under control.

The cause? A gender-reveal party gone wrong.

Dennis Dickey, an off-duty Border Patrol agent, was celebrating his wife’s pregnancy at a party near Green Valley, Ariz., on April 23, 2017, his attorney told the Arizona Daily Star on Friday. In preparation, he had filled a target with colored powder. When it exploded, it would reveal their future child’s sex: pink for a girl, or blue for a boy.

The target also contained Tannerite, a legal but highly explosive substance, U.S. Forest Service special agent Brent Robinson wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court Sept. 20. When Dickey, now 37, fired his rifle at the target, the ensuing explosion sparked a fire that quickly spread through the dry brush, spurred on by unusually high winds and lower-than-average rainfall. By the time that it was fully contained over a week later, the fire had done $8 million worth of damage.

Dickey was charged with violating U.S. Forest Service regulations by causing a fire without a permit, a misdemeanor offense. On Friday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona announced that Dickey had pleaded guilty.

Dickey and his attorney, Sean Chapman, couldn’t be reached late Sunday night to confirm whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

As part of his plea agreement, Dickey will star in a public service announcement created in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service. He will spend five years on probation, and has agreed to pay restitution totaling $8,188,069, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.