Obese body causes funeral home fire
An overweight woman walks at the 61st Montgomery County Agricultural Fair on August 19, 2009 in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
An obese woman’s body fat overloaded filters and sparked a fire inside an Austrian crematorium, the public broadcaster ORF reported.
Firefighters had trouble controlling the blaze – which happened in April in Graz – because of extra insulation at the facility, Fox News said.
Officials estimated the corpse weighed about 440 pounds, and that the fire reached 572 F.
Similar fires have happened in Switzerland and Germany, according to Fox.
“In Switzerland, there is now a special crematorium for XXL-bodies,” former Graz fire chief Otto Widetschek said, Fox reported.
More from GlobalPost: Forlorn funeral turns festive when dead man wakes
Funeral director Christea Bogdan told The Daily Mail a facility in London exists to cremate larger bodies.
“We have to check the size in the crematorium to check the person in the coffin will fit in the crematorium,” Bogdan said.
Widetschek suggested stricter controls on the industry.
“Crematorium officials need to be more responsible and not just automatically put everybody in to be cremated,” he told The Daily Mail.
More from GlobalPost: Obese teen cut from home
The story you just read is accessible and free to all because thousands of listeners and readers contribute to our nonprofit newsroom. We go deep to bring you the human-centered international reporting that you know you can trust. To do this work and to do it well, we rely on the support of our listeners. If you appreciated our coverage this year, if there was a story that made you pause or a song that moved you, would you consider making a gift to sustain our work through 2024 and beyond?