The XXL Problem

Sadly, this is stuff, that I can't make up.

There's a crematorium in Austria that caught on fire a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, crematoriums are designed to burn bodies, and you rarely if ever....have an out-of-control fire at such a facility.

The fire department folks came to investigate this, and it took several weeks.  So they finally issued their report.....which got into the Austrian press.  I kinda doubt that it'll make into the US news, but it lays out this curious issue.

The crematorium had been contracted to burn the body of a 440 pound Austrian woman.  What transpired during the episode is that the body fat apparently got around to the blocking the filter system, so the crematorium started to overheat.  This triggered a fire to start with the layer of insulation that lines the walls of the crematorium.

Apparently, several other folks came out and admitted that they had been other fires in both Germany and Austria....relating to the same issue....obese folks.  They hadn't really admitted it in public, but it'd happened before.

So the fire chief of the town....has now issued out a warning on the danger of such activities.  What he suggests....is that if you want to continue crematorium activities for XXL folks....you need to design and build a place that can handle the "load".  He even suggested in a way.....that maybe the government might need to get involved.....to ensure there is one such facility around to handle this.

I sat and pondered over this.  Typically....Americans don't get into the cremation business.  We'd prefer to be buried.

You can imagine the government getting involved in yet another activity supporting the people of the country.....designing and building a XXL crematorium and probably operating it.  It's just another layer of tax revenue that you'd need to put on the shoulders of the public.

In the end, you can imagine this family calling around now.....for a crematorium to handle a dear departed aunt who weighed 380 pounds.  In the end, you have to ship the body off almost a thousand miles....to some Russian guy who simply tells you that he can handle someone of that size and weight.  He wants twice what it'd normally cost, but you have no choice because there's no one else willing to assume the risk.  And there's something in the back of your mind....questioning this whole thing.