Last year, Kawika Singson used a GoPro to capture amazing footage of lava spilling into the ocean. Twisted Sifter notes that the camera was "hopefully on a very long pole." This is only one of many incredible lava videos in his YouTube channel. Watch more and flinch repeatedly.
Singson shot the videos at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. It's very dangeorus work:
It was extremely difficult to get to," he told The Huffington Post. "The videos can only show you so much, but to actually be there, to feel the heat. ... The heat is one thing, but the gases are extremely toxic."
Singson, a Hawaii local who explores the lava and volcano at least once a week, outfits himself with a respirator when filming lava closely and wears long pants and long-sleeved shirts to protect himself from burns. Although his rubber tennis shoes sometimes melt as he walks over the scorching grounds, he prefers them to fire-proof boots, in case he has to run from a collapsing area or a random combustion. The thin soles also help him more accurately feel the ground over which he's walking.
"You have to be on the top of your game out there," he said. "First of all, you have the ocean and the current, then you have the lava, then you have to worry about bridges collapsing and then you have to worry about the super-hot toxic steam. All those things are going on at the same time."