The Fayetteville Fire Department is saying a potentially fatal incident in the Haymount neighborhood was the result of a social media challenge that involves boiling Drano.
Fayetteville fire chief Kevin Dove told city council members in a Monday meeting that an incident at an apartment complex over the weekend started off as a TikTok challenge that involves boiling Drano, which produced a crystal-like substance.
“It’s a TikTok challenge gone bad,” Dove said about the incident. “We’re lucky there were not several residents killed. I don’t do TikTok, so I don’t know but evidently there is one about boiling Drano to make some kind of crystals.”
Fayetteville fire said this accident could have been fatal, due to the toxicity of the chemical reaction.
WRAL looked into any such trends that involved specifically boiling Drano, but no results came up. There is an advisory against pouring boiling water right after pouring Drano down your drain, but we could not find a video that specifically mentions boiling Drano.
Instead, there does seem to be a string of videos where people combine balls of aluminum foil and Drano in a water bottle or some form of container. This reaction creates an explosion within the container and makes a smoking effect.
It is unclear how Fayetteville officials attributed this incident to a social media trend.
Dove said that the smoke alarm went off and alerted neighbors, and the situation was resolved without any loss of life.
WRAL has reached out to the Fayetteville Fire Department for comment about how the incident happened, and where they saw the TikTok trend.