Death Due to Fractal Wood Burning: An Emerging Public Health Problem

The art of pyrography, burning designs in wood, dates back to prehistory. Risks of traditional techniques included cutaneous burns and airway injury. Fractal wood burning is a niche technique using a high-voltage electrical source to burn branched designs into wood. While this technique has grown in popularity, the associated risks are not well understood. We describe a patient who presented to our burn center after sustaining high-voltage electrical injuries while making fractal wood art using an improvised a high-voltage transformer. During the wood-burning process, he contacted the electrodes and suffered full-thickness electrical burns to the neck, chest, and bilateral upper extremities. Bilateral upper extremity fasciotomies were performed on admission. Multiple subsequent operations culminated with autografting to most of the wounds and complex reconstruction of the left thumb. In evaluating online news reports, we found 25 unique individuals with death or injury attributed to fractal wood burning from July 2016 to January 2020. Five sustained substantial injuries, while 20 reportedly died. Ages ranged from 17 years old to the 60s. One death and one injury occurred in females, with the remainder of reports involving males. Of the survivors, four sustained significant upper extremity electrical injuries and three suffered cardiac arrest at the time of injury. Fractal wood burning is associated with devastating high-voltage electrical injuries and death. Prevention efforts should be focused on education about the potential for death and permanently disabling injuries from this art form.