Jamie O'Brien is fired up. The Pipeline master has set himself on fire in Teahupoo, Tahiti.
The barrel-riding expert ignited the idea of surfing on fire over a year ago when he asked fans for ideas of what he should do next."They said 'it would be cool if you lit yourself on fire' and I thought, might as well. So I went into Red Bull, and I said hey, I want to light myself on fire and go into a barrel at Teahupo'o, and they looked at me like are you for real?" recalls O'Brien.
So we've got fire, fast barrels, and an extremely shallow, sharp coral reef. Better call Riley Harper, a Hollywood stunt coordinator.
"I was so stoked when I got the call from Red Bull to do this project. My friends and I had actually talked about this before because we're all surfers and have done a lot of fire burns on movies, and we know it's something that has never been done before," explained Harper.
After performing two fire safety tests in California and one additional test in Hawaii to assess the feasibility of the idea, Jamie O'Brien was ready to set himself on fire with a custom wetsuit made by Body Glove.
On July 22nd, the Hawaiian daredevil was ready. His team included 25 members of fire safety, water safety, production crew and photographers. They were all ready to make it a success.
In the end, you get fluorescent orange waves, and a mad surfer covered in flames.
Watch Jamie O'Brien surf one of the world's heaviest waves — while lit on fire.
Posted by We are surfers on jeudi 23 juillet 2015
