About

Fire Challenge is a dare game in which the participant voluntarily sets oneself on fire for a short period of time by applying flammable liquids or igniting combustible parts of one's body and filming the outcome, similar to other pain endurance challenges that have spread through the social media, such as the Eraser Challenge and the Hot Pepper Challenge.

Origin

One of the first fire challenge videos uploaded to YouTube is titled "Fire challenge" and was uploaded on April 5th, 2012, by YouTuber 1BlazinEagle1^[2]. The video features the YouTuber lighting his chest hair on fire. As of July 2014, the video has gained over 100,000 views. The video has since been removed, but a clip of it is included in 1BlazinEagle1's 2012 compilation (shown below).

Spread

On April 7th, 2013, Viner RolandConstantino^[7] introduced the hashtag #FireChallenge to accompany Vines that involve bringing a flame in contact (or near contact) with your body. As of July 2014, the Vine has gained over 1,000 loops.

On May 25th, 2013, YouTuber Freddiee Bryant uploaded a video titled "The Hand Sanitizer/Fire Challenge," in which a young boy sets his hand on fire using hand sanitizer (video since deleted). On June 24th, 2013, YouTuber 1BlazinEagle1 uploaded a video titled "Nuts & Chest Fire challenge" which featured a group of men lighting their chest hair, leg hair and pants on fire (shown below, right). As of August 2014, the original upload has been removed.

Media coverage of the challenge increased in late July of 2014, after satirical news site News Nerd^[10] published an article on a fictional death due to the game on July 24th. Also in late July 2014, a teenager in Lexington, Kentucky^[4] was hospitalized for his injuries suffered from attempting the challenge.

On August 11th, 2014, YouTuber Shane Dawson posted a version of the fire challenge. The post (shown below) received more than 1.5 million views in four years.

Mother's Arrest

Since rising to popularity on YouTube and Vine, numerous instances of unsuccessful attempts at the fire challenge have been documented and shared on video-sharing sites. On July 29th, LiveLeak^[8] user Schubertfan uploaded a video titled “Fire Challenge Gone Wrong” in which a young man is seen suffering from self-inflicted burn injuries after dousing his torso in nail polish remover and setting himself on fire (report below). The same day, the video was submitted to the /r/videos^[19] subreddit, where it gained over 1,800 votes (85% upvoted) and 640 comments, and it was subsequently featured in articles reporting on the latest "alarming teen trend" from Bustle^[5]and The Washington Post.^[6]

On August 11th, 2014, the Charlotte Observer^[11] reported that North Carolina resident Janie Lachelle Talley had been arrested for helping her 16-year-old son make the fire challenge video, charged with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Police determined Talley had helped record the video after a witness contacted the Department of Social Services. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the arrest, including The Daily Dot,^[17] The Huffington Post,^[18]ABC News,^[12] Daily Mail,^[13] Yahoo,^[14]Examiner^[15] and MTV.^[16]

2018 Timiyah Landers Incident

On August 17th, 2018, a 12-year-old girl from Detroit named Timiyah Landers suffered burns on 49% of her body attempting the fire challenge. The incident took place while her mother, Brandi, was napping, awoken by "loud explosion." Brandi posted pictures of the damage as well as her daughter in the hospital on Facebook (shown below).^[20]

Three days later, Owens launched a GoFundMe ^[21] campaign to help with her daughter's hospital bills. Within two days, the campaign raised more than $4,300 of its $5,000 goal.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References