Remember these things? We wrote about the latest trend in gender reveal parties earlier this year. The idea is the proud parents gather all of their friends and relatives, then one of them shoots either a blue or a pink binary target to let the whole world know that they’re the first parents ever in the history of the world to have a boy or a girl.
That’s how it’s supposed to go anyway. But when Border Patrol agent Dennis Dickey shot one of those things near Green Valley, Arizona last year, he touched off a 45,000 acre fire that caused $8 million in damage and took 800 firefighters to douse.
Winds had been gusting around 40 mph at the time and the National Weather Service had issued a fire watch, the Arizona Daily Star reported in May 2017. No injuries were reported, but hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate, according to the newspaper.
Last week Dickey pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation for causing the fire.
“It was a complete accident,” Dickey told a judge Friday. “I feel absolutely horrible about it. It was probably one of the worst days of my life.”
Don’t think he’s getting off easy with the misdemeanor charge.
In his plea agreement, Dickey agreed to a sentence of five years’ probation, and to make a public service announcement with the U.S. Forest Service concerning the cause of the Sawmill fire. Dickey agreed to pay restitution totaling $8,188,069. Dickey also agreed to make an initial payment of $100,000 toward the restitution judgment and monthly payments thereafter.
There goes the kid’s college fund.