Ellington

A former UW employee was rushed by helicopter to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition after his body was engulfed in flames in the middle of Red Square at about 1:15 p.m. today. He died later this afternoon.

"All I can report is that there is a death consistent with what you describe," said a representative from the King County Medical Examiner.

The man, 61, suffered second to third degree burns on about 80 percent of his body, said Ralph Robinson, assistant chief of field operations for the UW Police Department. No other people were injured.

Robinson reported that the man was middle-aged and "doused himself with gasoline" and "lit himself on fire."

The man was a former UW employee as recently as two weeks ago, Robinson said.

"We're not sure under what circumstances he was let go, whether he was fired or if he quit," he said.

Some eyewitnesses’ reports are conflicting on the nature of the burning.

Justin Norman, a UW alumnus and cartoonist, was walking through Red Square before the police were on the scene and said he noticed a group of three to four people huddled and crouched around the blocks in the middle of the square.

Norman said that the group looked inconspicuous until suddenly a 10-foot high flame shot up, filling the entire center of the Square.

"It didn't look like it was intentional at all," Norman said. He said that when the flames shot up, several people screamed and scattered from the center of the square, one with a sleeve on fire, before turning back to assist a man stuck the center of the flames.

"It wasn't until the flames died down that you could tell it was a person," Norman said, who was taking photographs of the event. "Then [you could] see a guy engulfed in flames" and "people trying to put him out."

Norman’s camera was later confiscated by authorities at the scene.

Police blocked off Red Square at about 1:30 p.m., and students, staff and others were streaming away from the scene. One student was overheard saying "someone poured gas on himself and set himself on fire."

Jason Chen, a senior, was in Odegaard Undergraduate Library when the fire occurred. He said he heard some commotion, then a man "wearing boxer shorts" and nothing else ran in yelling, "Someone is on fire, get help now."

Some students believed the man was participating in a political protest, although it is unclear what his motivations were.

The unclothed man then grabbed a fire extinguisher before running back out, followed by a small crowd, Chen said.

An unidentified student standing in front of Kane Hall reported that she saw that the man's "face was all black."

By 1:40 p.m. police were cleaning up the scene, an ambulance was present and the man's clothes were still on the ground in the middle of the Square.

Robinson told news cameras that people were ordered to stay out of Red Square after the event, but said that the rest of the campus was safe and operating as normal.

Reach Jacob Olson at news@dailyuw.com.