Stock photo of fire (©Tim Gartside / age footstock)

Dead obese woman's fat sets crematorium building on fire

6/6/2012

A deceased 440-pound Austrian woman's body reportedly carried so much fat that it caused a crematorium in the city of Graz to overheat, resulting in billows of thick black smoke to seep out the building. Firefighters eventually extinguished the fire but were reportedly left "covered in a layer of sooty grease." Crematoriums are increasingly installing larger furnaces to accommodate the ballooning average body size, but after this incident, countries such as Austria and Switzerland are talking about prohibiting larger bodies from crematoriums.

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