TV personality bursts into flames

It sounded like a crazy idea to begin with.In fact, over the past dozen years, the joke around brainstorming sessions for KMAX TV's "Good Day Sacramento" has always been "Let's set Mark on fire."The "Mark" being seemingly fear-proof morning personality Mark S. Allen. He's braved everything from eating massive amounts of red-hot chili peppers (that's him in the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records) to entering a shark tank to rolling a stunt police car (two years ago in Auburn).He's even lived on a billboard for a month, breaking both legs during a fall in the process.When the laughter at the brainstorming session had died down, Allen called their bluff and walked out of the meeting, saying "I'll call Gary.""Gary's answer was 'Partial or full burn?'" Allen recalled.The "Gary" is Gary Davis. He's been providing know-how and stunt work for films since 1970, a year after graduating from Del Oro High School. It was Davis who helped Allen do the stunt roll at the Gold Country Fairgrounds. Davis also assisted on a set of Allen stunts that included a fall off a building onto an airbag and sidecar racing at Auburn's Fast Fridays.With Allen garbed in several layers of clothing and then slathered with a specially made fire accelerant, Davis reached down with a torch Wednesday and lit a pant leg.Allen was soon engulfed in flames and walking around the interior of one of the fairgrounds barns, watched by Davis, wary Cal Fire and Auburn Fire Department personnel. An AMR ambulance crew stood by as the building was illuminated by Allen's orange glow.When Allen began to feel the heat, he dropped to the ground and firefighters quickly converged on him with extinguishers to put out the remaining flames. Other than a few scorch marks on his shirt, Allen came though his fiery stunt unscathed.Three cameras were rolling and the November sweeps month stunt was telecast to a regional morning audience. It's also posted on the station's Web site.In all, Allen was on fire for about 30 seconds."The first 10 seconds, I felt no heat," he said. "At about the time Gary said to drop, I felt the toastiness."Davis, whose work can be seen in major motion pictures like "Terminator 2" and "Starsky & Hutch," said he expected the burn to last 30 seconds. A code word - "Seabiscuit" - had been established in case Allen ran into problems before then.With a warning to children not to try the stunt at home, Allen filed his report on "Good Day Sacramento," providing an insider's take on one of Hollywood's most spectacular stunts.The Journal's Gus Thomson can be reached at , or post a comment at auburnjournal.com.