US couple killed in viral TikTok wood burning trend, electrocution deaths grow

Fractal wood burning is "a very dangerous process" police Chief Deputy Chad Billeb says. Photo / TikTok, news.com.au

A US couple have died while attempting a "highly dangerous" wood-burning technique that's recently gained popularity on TikTok.

The bodies of James Carolfi, 52, and Tanya Rodriguez, 44, were found after a house fire at their Wisconsin property on April 6.

According to local police, the couple had died before the fire started, having been electrocuted while attempting "fractal burning".

"Foul play has been ruled out, and the deaths are found to be accidental in nature and believed to be caused by electrocution from fractal wood burning," Chief Deputy Chad Billeb, from the Marathon County Sheriff's Office, said at a press conference yesterday.

"We believe the fractal wood-burning equipment that caused the electrocutions likely caused the structural fire."

The controversial technique – which has gained notoriety with hundreds of videos on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram – creates lightning or treelike etchings by using jumper cables and disassembled microwave parts to run high-voltage electricity through a piece of wood soaked in a chemical solution.

"It's a very dangerous process," Chief Deputy Billeb told reporters.

"You can see the potential danger that's there, when you're working with something like the power supply to a microwave."

To date, at least 33 people have died in America as a result of the trend, according to the American Association of Woodturners (AAW), including woodworkers, hobbyists, and one "electrician with many years of experience working with electricity".

AAW executive director Phil McDonald told Wisconsin Public Radio the organisation adopted a strong recommendation against the technique after noticing a "proliferation" of social media tutorials instructing people on how to use "extremely high-voltage transformers to create their own home-based fractal burning systems".

Often the clips on social media don't offer a safety warning, and show people using everything from their microwave to their car battery as a power source.

"I believe that's probably been the largest contributing source to the individuals who are being injured and dying from this," McDonald said.

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"The equipment can't be made safely, and the real issue here is that there are not enough safeguards once those home-based systems are built to ensure that they can be operated safely."

Chief Deputy Billeb said while the patterns created by fractal burning are "very pretty, quite frankly, the dangers of the craft cannot be ignored".

"Taking advice from YouTube or any other social media site in order to do a craft … is not safe when you're dealing with electricity," he said.

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