Can someone explain to me please what a “gender reveal” party is and why anyone would want to set off a “pyrotechnic device” at it - especially in the middle of an appalling drought.
There are times (increasingly) when I wonder if I am on the same planet as many of my fellow human beings. 
You’re not/we’re not, they are Californians 
Well well. In the end I looked it up … apparently
"A gender-reveal party is an event or celebration had during pregnancy. The primary goal of this event is the eponymous “reveal” of the baby’s sex to the expecting parents, family, and friends."
Not what I thought at all. Maybe for those of you with kids it was obvious.
I assumed, being California, it was something to do with deciding what gender one wanted to be along the lines of “Tales of the City” - lovely mini-series with the fabulous Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis.
Instead, it’s some poor foetus who is going to live for the rest of his/her life being reminded she/he was responsible for the California Wildfires and came into the world under a pall of smoke.
And who will have to live with morons for parents and their presumably equally moronic friends.
I think it is purely an American thing 
probably been around 15 years or so. it started off being things like the colour of the cake when you cut into it but obviously it has moved on to fireworks! From other links I saw come up when I read that article yesterday it isn’t the first fire to be started by one of these parties. I’m guessing it is a keeping up with the Joneses type thing, trying to come up with a new exciting way to ‘reveal’. Edjits.
I realise that the following remark needs to come with a health warning but I read stuff like this and sometimes the only conclusion I can reach is that there needs to be an intelligence test for, at the very least:
As a midwife I can TOTALLY agree with this. Some of the things I saw and heard on the maternity unit …
and some of the names 
Gender reveals are becoming more of a ‘thing ‘ in the Uk Balloons that burst releasing coloured confetti,cannons etc. So far the ones I have known of have been for fairly close family and friends but like baby showers they will probably get bigger