Nowadays they'd get a Darwin Awards Honourable Mention, like the anonymous American lad who burned up the kitchen (and some of himself) heating a pail of gas on a stove to thaw his carburetor, or
52-year-old Zlatko near Zagreb trying to pre-warm his car engine. "Maybe I used too much newspaper." (Zlatko left after lighting the paper, thus escaping the fireball which claimed his beloved Opel Kadett.)