Watch A Man Run Through A Scorching Lava Field And Try Not To Wince

Some people like to live life on the edge. Others, like Kawika Singson, enjoy living even more dangerously: On fields of scorching lava.

The Hawaii-born lava enthusiast has hiked miles over hot, blackened fields every week since the 1980s. It’s all to document the molten lava flowing from Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island.

The photographer’s footage, which includes lava spilling into the ocean and engulfing a tree, consistently goes viral on his own Facebook page. The below 2013 shot of Singson and his tripod catching fire on a lava field has proven particularly popular and has occasionally recirculated on the internet.

With all his lava-fueled fame, Singson has never fully revealed the risks he takes to get that volcanic eye-candy... Until now.

He takes fans along on one of his runs through Hawaii’s fiery earth in a video published last week ― and, yes, it’s as dangerous and difficult as it looks.

“For the most part, the hardened lava is stable enough to walk on, unless there’s a cavity below you can’t see and have no way of knowing [where it is],” Singson previously told The Huffington Post. “That’s where my experience comes into play.”

He said he treads very lightly as he navigates the lava, trying to spread his weight evenly and avoiding leaning too heavily on one foot.

Singson’s run through the lava is just one part of his seven-mile hike that leads to the active flow. He usually starts his journey at night, so he can clearly see the orange glow of the lava beneath him.

His decades of lava running and living on Hawaii has made him an expert in this extremely dangerous and niche hobby that most people should never try, as Singson is at pains to point out.

“Please!!..please!...please! don’t [sic] try this!,” he wrote on the video’s caption. “I don’t run blindly across, I pick and choose my steps very rapidly and carefully as I go.”

But if you want to witness the lava that is now flowing into the ocean without embarking on Singson’s perilous trek, you can hike the safe (and county-approved) emergency road to the official viewing area.

In the meantime, we can all live vicariously through Singson, and leave the risks to the expert lava runner.