A man sets himself on fire outside a Romanian government headquarters in Bucharest, 11 July 2005. Iulian Grosu was protesting because Spanish courts had granted custody of his 6-year-old son to his mother, despite the fact Romanian autorities had ruled Grosu was the childs legal guardian. Grosu survived the self-immolation in which he suffered severe burns to half his body, but died two weeks later in hospital.

This fiery explosion at a chlorine wax factory in China lasted six hours before it was contained. Though there were no deaths, more than 40 chlorine containers had to be removed by specially suited firefighters.

Burning/Immolation

Burning is said to be one of the most painful of deaths: imagine yourself cooked to a crisp on an open fire, just like your favorite roasted chicken or pig, but alive and still kicking, feeling every flicker of fire roast an inch of your skin slowly. Although most people who were caught in a fire (whether intended or not) died of carbon monoxide poisoning before the flames devoured them, those unfortunate enough not to die from suffocation or poisoning were slowly and agonizingly burnt to a crisp. Carbon monoxide poisoning usually occurred if the fire was large; however, if the fire was small, the victim usually died from stroke, shock, or loss of blood plasma. As a form of execution, burning was used as a penalty for those guilty of witchcraft, heresy and treason. To minimize the pain of the condemned, family members would bring additional straw, called faggots, and firecrackers to the site, placing these on strategic places on the condemned’s body. The lower extremities would burn first before the torso, breasts and face.

On June 11th 1963, Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, sat down in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon, covered himself in gasoline and He then ignited a match, and set himself on fire. Đức burned to death in a matter of minutes, and he was immortalized in a famous photograph taken by a reporter who was in Vietnam in order to photograph the war. All those who saw this spectacle were taken by the fact that Duc did not make a sound while burning to death. Đức was protesting President Ngô Đình Diệm’s administration for oppressing the Buddhist religion.

Ed Gein’s House on Fire.