An active volcano is turning up the heat in Iceland, so much so that it prompted a local tour guide to do an impromptu striptease next to the flowing lava!

Pictures Ecoadventure tour guide Sveinn Snorri Sighvatsson have gone viral for bearing it all during a visit to Geldingadalur in Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula. Sveinn’s unusual act took place as revelers gathered at the site of the erupting volcano to watch the remarkable display – the volcano’s not Sveinn’s — which began last Friday.

Sveinn, who works for the tour company “I Am Iceland,” was asked to model a pair of trendy  Pit Viper sunglasses as a favor and decided to take things up a gear to ensure “maximum exposure.”

“My friends and I were joking about naked pictures in the lava field,” he told CNN Travel. “One of my friends is a photographer, and he was telling me about these sunglasses. So I said, ‘get your camera ready, I’m going to take my clothes off.'”

The photographer who captured the moment was Norris Niman, who says he knew Sighvatsson was “the was the perfect man for a shot in the freshly formed lava field.”

“A festival is not a true festival unless someone gets naked,” adds Niman. “And this one was, of course, no exception.”

Niman says getting the shot was not so easy.

“It was like standing too close to a big bonfire. So we had about a minute to snap this collection while rotating around so as not to roast either side too much and with a big crowd watching.”

While his experience as an adventure guide meant he was able to assess the danger and “get in and out” quickly, Sighvatsson stresses that anyone who “doesn’t know what they’re doing” should stay on the upper ground and avoid going near the lava fields.” 

“People are not aware of the gasses that are there,” he says. “It’s ok to stay above it [the volcano] on the higher ground, there you are completely safe. But going down into it can be really, really dangerous.

“A heavy wind was blowing on Sunday, so the gasses went into the opposite direction, and we were fine staying close to the lava field. But if there is no wind, you don’t go down there.”

Although the shoot took less than a few minutes, hundreds of people were there to witness it, and the moment found its way onto the Internet.

As crowds continued to gather at Geldingadalur, which is still spewing out lava, Icelandic authorities have set up a hiking trail to regulate the large numbers of visitors, and the area is patrolled regularly in order to ensure everyone stays safe.

“It’s a perfect tourist eruption,” Thorvaldur Thordarson, volcanology professor at the University of Iceland, told Reuters earlier this week.

“With the caveat, though, don’t go too close.” I assume that means clothed or not!