Story Archive

When You Play With Fire, You Sometimes Get Burned

In 2005, Anthony Beninati of Los Angeles, Calif., attended his third Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. The culmination of the multi-day festival each year is a gigantic bonfire, and in 2005 Beninati carried a photograph of a dead friend to burn. He walked 7 to 10 feet into the burning embers before dropping the photo, then stepped forward, going deeper into the fire, before tripping and falling. He was badly burned — and sued the festival organizers. When the suit was tossed by the trial court, he appealed. But the state appeals court unanimously refused to reinstate the suit. “By continuing to walk into the fire, Beninati assumed the risk that he might trip and fall,” the court ruled. “The risk of falling and being burned by the flames or hot ash was inherent, obvious and necessary to the event.” (RC/San Francisco Chronicle) ...And from that tiny seed of common sense, a mighty tree will grow. But you can count on someone trying to burn it down.