Firewalker face-plants into coal pit

A firewalker in Thailand has suffered an embarrassing and potentially painful blunder after falling face-first into a pile of hot coals.

In footage posted online, the man appears to be taking part in a ceremony in the town of Yala when his unfortunate fall occurred.

In front of a large crowd, he lines up behind other firewalkers with the small pile of coals ahead of him.

But a couple of metres from the obstacle, the man trips and falls face-first into the orange pile.

He is quickly pulled up by men running behind him, his clothes looking slightly charred and glowing after the fall.

Whilst the tumble looks painful and the show of firewalking often appears impressive, Australian scientist Karl Kruszelnicki says the spectacle is simply a fraud.

"My first point is that the name 'firewalker' is not accurate. They don't walk on fire. In fact, most firewalkers don't even walk on naked hot coals. In general, they walk on hot coals that are covered by ash — but 'ashwalker' doesn't sound as impressive as 'firewalker'," he wrote in a blog for the ABC.

There is little known about the video, which was uploaded to sharing website LiveLeak today and has already been viewed more than 16,000 times.