Two companies that sold pyrotechnic devices used in a gender-reveal photo shoot that ignited the 2020 El Dorado fire in Southern California have agreed to pay a combined $4 million to settle civil claims brought by the U.S. Forest Service, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Hubbard, Ohio-based Wholesale Fireworks Corp. and its subsidiary American Fireworks Wholesale LLC agreed to pay more than $4 million, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California. A third company, Miami-based Pink or Blue Gender Team Inc., agreed to pay $50,000.
The settlements cap a civil case that alleged the companies designed, imported, distributed, marketed, and advertised smoke bombs that were illegal in California and lacked adequate warnings that the devices could start a fire. Federal prosecutors said the smoke bombs should never have been sold in the state, where they are illegal.
The El Dorado fire burned 22,744 acres and destroyed nine structures and more than a dozen outbuildings. Charles Morton, 39, a veteran Forest Service firefighter, died on the fire line 12 days after the blaze began. The Forest Service estimated total damage at more than $41 million.
On Sept. 5, 2020, Refugio Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez launched the devices — marketed as gender-reveal smoke bombs — at El Dorado Ranch park during a photo shoot. The smoke bombs quickly ignited dry grass, and the fire spread to the San Bernardino National Forest.
Representatives from the three companies did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
The legal saga also included a criminal case against the couple. In 2024, Refugio Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges. Refugio Jimenez was sentenced to a year in jail and two years’ probation. Angela Jimenez was sentenced to a year of probation, according to the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office. The couple was also ordered to pay nearly $1.8 million in restitution.
Gender-reveal parties rose in popularity throughout the 2010s, with celebrations escalating from cake cuttings and balloon drops to dramatic stunts involving rifles, airplanes, and alligators. Stunts have sometimes resulted in injuries, widespread property damage, and death.
In 2017, a U.S. Border Patrol agent sparked the Sawmill fire in Arizona when he shot an explosive target for a gender-reveal party in the Santa Rita mountain foothills. In 2019, a 56-year-old woman in Iowa died after being struck by debris from an inadvertently made pipe bomb used for a gender-reveal party. That same year in Texas, a small plane crashed after dumping hundreds of gallons of pink water for a gender reveal; the pilot and passenger survived.
Jenna Karvunidis, credited with launching the trend in 2008, later warned against over-the-top reveals. “Who cares what gender the baby is?” Karvunidis wrote in a 2019 Facebook post.
The settlement in the El Dorado case is part of a broader pattern of litigation over wildfire costs in California. MSI reported in February that PacifiCorp settled federal wildfire claims for $575 million, and the same week an Oregon jury ordered the utility to pay $305 million for the 2020 wildfires.