While climbing Mount Dokono, a 1,273-meter-high volcano in Indonesia, content creator Jonathan Le Blanc felt the ground shake beneath his feet.
As he looked out from the rim of the volcano's crater at the summit, his camera captured footage of jets of superheated gases and ash rising high into the air.
Suddenly, he covered his mouth and began to quickly descend the mountain.
“There are toxic gases, so we have to run now,” he tells the camera as his feet slip during his rapid descent.
For content creators and social media enthusiasts, volcanoes may provide stunning locations to film, but authorities point out that some thrill-seekers are ignoring warnings and breaking the rules, leading to deadly consequences.
“Volcanoes can be fascinating and interesting material for videos, because they are a sight that not many people see,” Le Blanc says in a video call.
“It's like you're in a movie set in a dangerous place,” he adds. “So, I completely understand why thrill-seekers are drawn to going there.”
Le Blanc is a travel blogger whose videos in remote and inaccessible locations around the world have received hundreds of thousands of views online.
He climbed Mount Dokono in April last year, the same site that witnessed a tragedy a few months earlier.
In May, three tourists died after climbing into the volcano's crater, despite restrictions on climbing the mountain that had been implemented a few weeks earlier.
Local police said the group ignored warnings, adding that "many of the hikers are foreign tourists who want to create content for social media."
However, the half-sister of one of the victims told local media that her relative did not make that trip just to take pictures for social media, but rather because he was a nature lover.
Le Blanc says he always adheres to local rules, and never asks local guides to take him to areas they don't feel comfortable going to.
“We pay a lot of attention to safety, and we try to balance it with producing an interesting video at the same time,” he adds.
But there are others who are willing to take greater risks.
Between 2022 and August of this year, 116 people died in climbing areas, according to data from the Indonesian Association of Mountain Guides, with 27 deaths resulting from volcanic eruptions.
Due to limited infrastructure in remote areas, local rescue teams responding to these emergencies face serious risks.
Agam Rinjani knows all too well what happens when things go wrong during volcano climbing trips.
In the year 2025, this Indonesian rescuer received widespread attention online after he risked his life in an extremely difficult rescue operation; He was a member of a 50-person team that recovered the body of Juliana Marins, a 26-year-old Brazilian tourist who fell into the crater of Mount Rinjani, which has a height of 3,726 metres.
Although his courage was praised online, the dangers of that mission remained stuck in his memory.
“After the evacuation, thank God I was still alive, I told myself I didn’t want to do this work again; it was scary,” Rinjani says. “But then, recently, I received a call to rescue a victim of a plane crash in Makassar and I went there; it would be too small not to respond to the call.”
Rinjani points out that some hikers continue to film with their phones even while being rescued, including a person who fell 200 meters down the mountain.
He recounts, saying: “The first thing he did was look for his phone to start filming. So I stopped him, and fastened the life belt on his body.”
He is concerned about the risks that ill-prepared travelers pose, not only to themselves but also to emergency teams.
He added: "When you do not pay attention to safety, this may cause trouble for you, your family, those around you, as well as for the rescue team and their families, and even for officials. When an accident occurs, this places a heavy burden on the shoulders of many people."
