thinking about 'spontaneous human combustion'

[the guy]

i was thinking about 'spontaneous human combustion' today and i was just wondering, though i'm not trying to prove it or anything, if a human body was to reach a high enough starting temperature, would it burn unaided, even if the source of heat stopped?

Edited October 2, 2010 by the guy

[Marat]

Spontaneous human combustion is a fascinating phenomenon, particularly since in the cases studied, it seems that while the body has burned to cinders, the areas around the combusted body are completely untouched by the flames, even though they may be quite inflammable.

 

There are two things which suggest that there is something genuinely strange going on here, rather than just the usual public hysteria over some poorly understood phenomenon. First, reports of spontaneous combustion can be found over a wide variety of cultural and historical contexts, so the origin of spontaneous combustion in some cultural hysteria seems less likely. Second, there are some fairly constant physical correlates of spontaneous combustion reports, which indicates that this phenomenon has some of the characteristics of a genuine physical process rather than just a myth, which can be as varied as the inventive capacities of human imagination. These constant physical correlates are the very old age of the victims, their tendency to be overweight, and their indulgence in alcohol. Those correlates could point to something perfectly ordinary happening in this phenomenon, such as unfit old people drinking too much and then being unable to prevent themselves from burning when they pass out while smoking cigarettes (smoking is correlated with alcohol use). Another theory is that these people have Parkinson's Disease and so cannot move away to escape the flames when they catch fire from a lit cigarette falling to the floor after they have fallen asleep.

 

But what seems strange in these cases is that the human body is normally very difficult to combust, since its main ingredient is water. It requires so much fuel burning at such a high temperature to combust a human body that corpses are shipped great distances to crematoria for burning, since firing up the crematoria too often at many different sites for each new death would be much too expensive. So how do these old folk burn up so completely, usually being reduced to ash down to their ankles, with nothing more powerful as a fuel than a lit cigarette and their clothes?

[Moontanman]

The wick effect has been shown to explain almost all modern examples of so called spontaneous human combustion. In many cases homicide is thought to be the main cause of these cases of human burning up. The wick effect has been shown to work on animals as well as people and can be reproduced by wrapping a pig in a cloth and dousing the cloth with ethanol and lighting it up. It results in the same sort of very slow burning and burn injuries said to be mysterious in the human combustion cases.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion

 

The "wick effect" hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with animal tissue (pig) and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.[6][7]

[the guy]

so following on from this 'wick effect' once the body has caught fire it will carry on burning?

[Moontanman]

so following on from this 'wick effect' once the body has caught fire it will carry on burning?

 

 

Actually it's the clothing that allows the wick effect to work but yes once started it burns until it runs out of fuel, the fat of the body... it should be pointed out it is very slow, low temperature burn, in the few cases where the flame as been observed it is described a low yellow flame, almost like a very large candle with a very sooty greasy flame...

Edited October 2, 2010 by Moontanman

[Marat]

But if the experiment was tried on animal carcasses wrapped in a cloth which was doused in ethanol, where is the ethanol in the human cases? It would seem odd if these old ladies had first doused their clothes with ethanol before falling asleep while smoking!

 

Also, if the wick effect operates via a long, slow, low-temperature burning, then why does it kill people? Being burned to death is quite painful and sufficient to awaken anyone from a deep sleep, so why do the victims of so-called 'spontaneous combustion' just sit there until they are thoroughly charred, rather than running for the kitchen to douse themselves with water? The photographs I have seen of supposed spontaneous combustions all show the victims lying in bed or sitting in a sofa rather than trying to do anything to rescue themselves from a very gradual process. Autopsies should be able to determine whether these victims died prior to being charred to cinders, but I have never heard of these cases being debunked by autopsy evidence that the combustion was posthumous. Even if it were, it would seem unlikely for there to be so many reports of spontaneous combustion from people first dying, then dropping a lit cigarette or setting in motion some other combustive process, and then slowly burning up. How often can it happen that people die just at the same instant they set fire to themselves?

[Moontanman]

Marat, can you say homicide? Homicide is at least suspected in many cases, the idea is that ethanol (liquor) is used as an accelerant and the victim is unconscious. Most of the people who are involved are black out drunks. Now this can also happen without the accelerant but many cases are now thought to be attempts to cover up murder and the accelerant just makes it easier. This has been documented, people have woke up on fire, it doesn't work all the time but it is good to cover up murder. The person you want to get rid of, usually an elderly relative who is a drunk, you kill them in some way, pour a little bit of liquor on them to make sure it works, set them on fire and leave. Several hours later someone finds a partially burn up corpse.

 

The perfect homicide, or at least it used to be, now they consider it homicide and investigate things a little bit further than they used to but if the body is burnt up bad enough and the police force is less than CSI Las Vegas you might get away with it... It will work without an accelerant but liquor is one of the few things it's difficult to detect as an accelerant, especially since the person is already drunk to begin with... and no an autopsy of ashes will not tell if the person was killed a few minutes before you set them on fire...

Edited October 3, 2010 by Moontanman

[Marat]

Though most of the cases of spontaneous combustion I have read about involve old people who lived alone: the impoverished, English widow who is found when the fire brigade is called in response to reports of smoke pouring out of a 2-room flat. There is usually no apparent motive, either of inheritance acceleration or personal dislike, to explain why anyone would want to bother risking a murder charge to get rid of such a person.

[Moontanman]

Though most of the cases of spontaneous combustion I have read about involve old people who lived alone: the impoverished, English widow who is found when the fire brigade is called in response to reports of smoke pouring out of a 2-room flat. There is usually no apparent motive, either of inheritance acceleration or personal dislike, to explain why anyone would want to bother risking a murder charge to get rid of such a person.

 

 

In the past most cases of SHC were thought to be supernatural or inexplicable in some way, most cases were not investigated throughly simply because no one could fathom a way the fire could have done what it does. This resulted in all the cases being less than well investigated. How ever it is possible for this to happen by accident, the idea of homicide and the mechanism by which this works has given a new dimension to SHC .

 

I am quite sure that there are some cases that are simply accidental but it is now known that it isn't some sort of mysterious process outside the normal nature of fire and flesh, it can be replicated, and that it can be and has been shown to be homicide. Once this has been shown to be homicide then all other cases become suspect.. Just because all the cases touted in the literature about the mysterious SHC seem to have no motive doesn't mean none have or than even the classic ones didn't have some motive.

 

It was assumed at the time that it was impossible for the fire to have been set by humans, the fire was thought to be impossible and have no possible explanation, now we know better and this moves it back into the realm of real life and real life fires generally have a cause. In many cases the most probable cause is homicide, accident is also possible but mysterious it is not...

[Marat]

Since the foundational postulate of science is that all phenomena are to be explained by weaving them back into already established knowledge and theory first, and if that turns out to be impossible, they are to be regarded as neutrally awaiting some novel but still physical explanation, rather than being treated as something mystical, I would agree with you that so-called 'spontaneous combustion' is not something mystical, although it may temporarily prove difficult to find a convincing account for all known cases.

 

Interestingly, the famous chemist Justus von Liebig (of 'von Liebig's apparatus') was sufficiently interested in spontaneous combustion to test the theory that it was explained by alcoholic saturation of the human body. He tried soaking corpses in alcohol but found that they only burned until the alcohol was burned off and did not replicate the phenomena of spontaneous combustion.

 

My Bible, George Gould's and Walter Pyle's 'Medical Curiosities' (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1896), says that while opinion was divided on the reality of spontaneous combustion up until the mid-19th century, since then the number of believers had declined until by the end of the century it had few supporters among the scientific community. People were reporting cases all the way back to Lord Bacon. Of the empirical correlates of spontaneous combustion cases, Gould and Pyle (p. 411) list the following:

 

1) It always occurs in a living human

2) The victims are usually old

3) It occurs more often in women than men

4) All victims are alone when it occurs

5) All victims led an idle life

6) All victims were overweight or alcoholics

7) There was usually some light and combustible substance in the room

8) The combustion is rapid and is completed within one to seven hours

[boffinboy]

i am 13 and have a theory

there are a type of atoms that cause SHC they are emitted from the brain of the victims and when they react with certain other atoms in the world and or victim they magnify somesort of energy into a tiny point (smaller than an atom) on the persons body and it instantly 'burns' them this happens so quickly that some of the other parts of the body are left unharmed.

[notejam]

Burn a hot dog in a microwave oven on high for about 6 or 7 minutes with it sitting on a paper towel, and that on a glass microwave dish.

The hot dog will burn from inside out, and not ignite the paper towel.

Much like some cases of SHC. Might be a microwave accident, or murder by microwave? Cases that describe metal objets in the room getting hot such as door knobs and mirror breaking from heat, seem to be describing microwave as the cause of the combustion.

Microwave burning does leave some parts completly chard and other parts undamaged.

 

Smoke emitting from body might not be a sign of combustion, but instead is only chemical fumes. Ammonia in sweat plus some salt and orange juice to make some weak hydrocloric acid will produce chemical fumes that look like smoke, if there is enough ammonia present. Perhaps these persons have an abnormal amount of ammonia? And perhaps it could of been due to some other chemical process that can produce smoke like fumes? Was any sensation of heat experinced?

 

Supposed burns that appear on skin is also getting classed as SHC. Is it? Or could it be something else like a hive like allergic reaction?

Or perhaps the person does not know they have chemicals around that they are accidently getting into and exposed themselves to?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mrs Zeta]

There is a simple cause, and I am surprised nobody has discussed it. It is called uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation, i.e. the process of energy production within the cell somehow 'bursts' and allows dramatic levels of energy to suddenly escape. Although I haven't seen any research supporting this.

[Ludwik]

i was thinking about 'spontaneous human combustion' today and i was just wondering, though i'm not trying to prove it or anything, if a human body was to reach a high enough starting temperature, would it burn unaided, even if the source of heat stopped?

 

Oxygen must also be available in sufficient amount. Otherwise a body will not ignite suddenly. I am sorry for reminding you the obvious.

 

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)

[jimmydasaint]

I am thinking about accelerants, for example alcohol, or ubiquitous furniture foam etc... combined with the type of convection currents in the vicinity of the burning corpse. I remember seeing some trash TV, which showed how an elderly gentleman burned to death in his armchair leaving items in his proximity completely untouched, including his radio, which was only a couple of feet away from his body. The reconstruction of his flat showed fierce convection currents which were localised and took the heat upwards in a narrow plume, roughly the diameter of the old man's body, accelerated by the synthetic materials in his armchair.

 

So, the bottom line IMHO is: accelerants (from the surroundings and also the human body) and 'narrow diameter' convection 'plumes'.

[Marat]

There are reports of spontaneous combustion of humans going quite far back in history, so we can probably rule out the accelerant capacity of foam rubber as a general explanation. But taking the empirical regularity noted long ago, that most of these people were alcoholics, we might suppose that the accelerant was alcohol. However, could they really spill enough alcohol on themselves to burn themselves up so thoroughly? Even someone in a drunken stupor would at least lurch out of his seat if he woke up to find himself on fire. I discussed these cases once a long time ago with a pathologist who tried to argue that the failure of the people in these cases to move from their seats or beds was probably due to their having Parkinson's Disease, but this condition is too rare to explain so many reports, and I have never heard the obvious correlation between Parkinson's Disease and SHC mentioned in any cases.

 

The problem seems to be two-fold: First, people react, move, scream, and struggle when they are on fire, yet all these cases seemed to respond quite passively. Second, it is extremely difficult to combust a human body, since it is mainly water, and crematoria need extremely hot fires and elaborate mechanisms to do their work. If you read the account of the attempt to burn the bodies of Hitler and Goebbels at the end of World War II, despite the fact that both bodies were doused with several cans of gasoline, the combustion was quite imperfect. So how do these little old ladies living alone in their flats get enough alcohol on themselves to burn to the last cinder, so there is nothing left except a pile of ashes, aside from a few distal remnants of a charred lower leg and foot?

[ewmon]

My 2¢ worth:

 

Spontaneous human combustion.

 

Why don't we ever here about it happening to other animals? Considering that the world contains 16 billion chickens, complete with easy-to-light feathers, we don't hear from a chicken farm: "Hey Joe, another chicken just burst into flames." Or mice. Or ants (except those in front of kids with magnifying glasses).

 

I'm guessing the answer is that humans drink alcohol, often habitually, and sometimes to excess. Alcohol might act as starter fluid or an accelerant. Besides, less dense fat would float on water or watery body fluids, and would burn like floating candles.

[Doc. Josh]

I haven't heard much in regards to shc, but the first thought to mind was in fact a starter. Now assuming the presented evidence is true, appears in older people, alcohol induced,smoking etc.. Now what about body creams? Like body rubs, oils etc.. the person may not shower daily and keeps putting on a compound which may be flamable to a point. And that mixed with the natural oil's from their skin. in a sense create a layer or fuel to burn, Now scenario (A) little old betty drinks vodka every night with a cigarette watching jeopardy. She has skin problems, which she treats with a flamable product etc.. as she sits in her chair ( fire retardant) in spandex, robe, and a little wool blanket. It's 11:30pm she makes one more drink passes out due to exessive drinking. And drops her virginia slim 100 on her side, now the amber is still burning and slowly moving toward her oily skin that she hasn't washed in days. On top of the repetitive uses of her skin cream and strong perfume, which she insist on wearing at home, created a slow burning fuel which now has caught fire on her. Now due to the smoke and carbon dioxide shes now asphyxiated on top of drunk. The fire dosen't spread because the chair's flam retardant she's burning slow because the skin cream is like a wax, but is reaching great tempature's.

This theory may be wrong but for argument sake it sounds better than magic.

 

 

[Mrs Zeta]

I haven't heard much in regards to shc, but the first thought to mind was in fact a starter. Now assuming the presented evidence is true, appears in older people, alcohol induced,smoking etc.. Now what about body creams? Like body rubs, oils etc.. the person may not shower daily and keeps putting on a compound which may be flamable to a point. And that mixed with the natural oil's from their skin. in a sense create a layer or fuel to burn, Now scenario (A) little old betty drinks vodka every night with a cigarette watching jeopardy. She has skin problems, which she treats with a flamable product etc.. as she sits in her chair ( fire retardant) in spandex, robe, and a little wool blanket. It's 11:30pm she makes one more drink passes out due to exessive drinking. And drops her virginia slim 100 on her side, now the amber is still burning and slowly moving toward her oily skin that she hasn't washed in days. On top of the repetitive uses of her skin cream and strong perfume, which she insist on wearing at home, created a slow burning fuel which now has caught fire on her. Now due to the smoke and carbon dioxide shes now asphyxiated on top of drunk. The fire dosen't spread because the chair's flam retardant she's burning slow because the skin cream is like a wax, but is reaching great tempature's.

This theory may be wrong but for argument sake it sounds better than magic.

 

Many cases of SHC do not fit the above scenario. Also many cases happened in the past decades when there were no fire retardant materials in common use. A body buring by ordinary means (acohol, oils etc) will a) not burn fully and will leave a lot of remains, b) will create so much heat that will cause extensive damage. So it is still a mystery, although I don't believe there is any 'magic' involved, no extraterrestrials etc.

[Moontanman]

Many cases of SHC do not fit the above scenario. Also many cases happened in the past decades when there were no fire retardant materials in common use. A body buring by ordinary means (acohol, oils etc) will a) not burn fully and will leave a lot of remains, b) will create so much heat that will cause extensive damage. So it is still a mystery, although I don't believe there is any 'magic' involved, no extraterrestrials etc.

 

You make a good point about the fire retardant materials but bodies do indeed burn completely if burned slowly. Experiments have been done by wrapping pig carcases in cheese cloth and dousing it with just a small amount of alcohol. This results in a wicking action and the fats of the body are burnt slowly by being wicked into the fabric as it burns, this results in a small flame less than 18" tall that burns for hours as the body, including bones, is slowly consumed. Appendages like feet, lowers legs and arms and hands are often left behind, the burning is so slow it is often missed until it is over with. thick greasy smoke deposits much like the SHC victims was given off by the pig carcases leaving a very similar if not identical burn pattern. once the main part of the body is consumed the flame goes out.

 

This slow, low, flame has actually been seen a few times in bodies that are intentionally burned as well and the act of trying to slow burn a body is what most cases of SHC are thought to be. It is possible that some bodies are burnt accidentally by this method as well. I think most of the mystery is people trying to hide a homicide but it is possible for someone to stroke out while burning a cigarette and be burnt up but this would have to rare, of course cases of SHC are also rather rare as well.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion

 

Natural explanationsCigarettes are often seen as the source of fire. Usually, it is thought that natural causes such as heart attacks may lead to the victim dying, subsequently dropping the cigarette. Embers from cigarettes and pipes may also ignite clothes.[3] Additionally, cigarettes burn at a temperature too low to trigger a flare up of most otherwise combustible materials. Typically, a lit cigarette dropped on an article of clothing creates a burn-hole, but does not initiate an open flame and spread.

The "wick effect" hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with animal tissue (pig) and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.[6][7]

 

http://www.skepdic.com/shc.html

Edited January 17, 2011 by Moontanman

[jimmydasaint]

With the excellent contributions others have made with the information they presented, I wonder if I may make a speculation.

Spontaneous human combustion needs at least alcohol as an accelerant, involves people who regularly consume alcohol (so we don't see horses spontaneously disappear in a puff of smoke and flames) and may involve asphyxiation of the person from smoke inhalation. The 'anaesthetised' state of the person would slow responses to the initial flame anyway. Combined to the 'wick effect' of slow burning body fat, the whole person could be consumed and burnt to cinders.

 

Sorry to bring up an old thread but this is fascinating stuff.

[Marat]

The apparent 'spontaneous combustion' in the death of Mary Reeser, a 67-year-old widow of St. Petersburg, Florida, on July 1, 1951 was extensively investigated by Dr. Wilton Krogman, a forensic scientist from the University of Pennsylvania. He was surprised that the fire that consumed her had not even damaged a pile of papers found next to her remains. He was particularly startled by the fact that her skull had shrunk to about the size of a grapefruit, even though in most cases of death by fire, the boiling of the brain causes the skull to expand.

 

Since he felt that a fire as extensive as that which had consumed Mary Reeser to ashes should have burned the entire room rather than have gone out on its own without touching the surroundings, he concluded that she must have been abducted, burned elsewhere in a crematorium, and her body dumped back in its apartment to make the death look accidental.

 

But why wouldn't the murderer just have knocked her unconscious and then set the apartment on fire? Or even if someone had burned her elsewhere, why not at least try to make the rest of the apartment look as if the fire had occurred there, at least by burning the stack of papers next to the body, for example?

Edited June 21, 2011 by Marat

[xxSilverPhinxx]

Maybe those people didn't react to being burnt because they were already dead? They were all older people?

[Marat]

Don't read this if your knees go wobbly in a pathology class!

 

The forensic process can determine whether flesh was burned posthumously or while the person was still alive. Although in most spontaneous combustion cases the bodies have been charred to ashes, usually some distal member, such as the region from the ankle to the foot, or part of the foot, remains intact, and here the tissue would be sufficiently integral to permit the determination whether the burning occurred during life or postmortem.

 

The most troubling puzzle in these cases is the thoroughness of the burning. It is extremely difficult and expensive to burn corpses in a mortuary, which is why crematoria fires are lighted only after a number of corpses have been collected for combustion. The type of temperatures required are higher than found in normal house fires, absent some accelerants being present.

 

At one time, to my eternal regret, given the colorful nature of my nightmare images ever since, I was a regular reader of the Journal of Forensic Science, and photographs of combusted corpses from various accidental fires were a frequent feature. The charring never seemed to get very far, since bodies are naturally extremely moist, being around 60% water. Women also should burn much better than men, since they are 30% fat, as opposed to the average male who is 15% fat, and fat can generate a good flame, but I don't know whether any predominane of females has been observed in purported spontaneous combustions.

 

Another odd thing I have read in a few spontaneous combustion cases is that the head is shrunken, often considerably so, but this is physically impossible, since heat applied to the head causes the brain to boil, which should burst the skull rather than contract it. This effect was actually recorded in the infamous Attica Prison riot, when escaped prisoners held a blow-torch to the head of a prisoner suspected of being a snitch and his head was seen to explode. Similarly, a photo in the JFS showed the body of a woman who had become trapped in a heating grill and the boiling of her internal organs had caused her back to blow out, rather than her body to shrink.

[Moontanman]

Don't read this if your knees go wobbly in a pathology class!

 

The forensic process can determine whether flesh was burned posthumously or while the person was still alive. Although in most spontaneous combustion cases the bodies have been charred to ashes, usually some distal member, such as the region from the ankle to the foot, or part of the foot, remains intact, and here the tissue would be sufficiently integral to permit the determination whether the burning occurred during life or postmortem.

 

The most troubling puzzle in these cases is the thoroughness of the burning. It is extremely difficult and expensive to burn corpses in a mortuary, which is why crematoria fires are lighted only after a number of corpses have been collected for combustion. The type of temperatures required are higher than found in normal house fires, absent some accelerants being present.

 

At one time, to my eternal regret, given the colorful nature of my nightmare images ever since, I was a regular reader of the Journal of Forensic Science, and photographs of combusted corpses from various accidental fires were a frequent feature. The charring never seemed to get very far, since bodies are naturally extremely moist, being around 60% water. Women also should burn much better than men, since they are 30% fat, as opposed to the average male who is 15% fat, and fat can generate a good flame, but I don't know whether any predominane of females has been observed in purported spontaneous combustions.

 

Another odd thing I have read in a few spontaneous combustion cases is that the head is shrunken, often considerably so, but this is physically impossible, since heat applied to the head causes the brain to boil, which should burst the skull rather than contract it. This effect was actually recorded in the infamous Attica Prison riot, when escaped prisoners held a blow-torch to the head of a prisoner suspected of being a snitch and his head was seen to explode. Similarly, a photo in the JFS showed the body of a woman who had become trapped in a heating grill and the boiling of her internal organs had caused her back to blow out, rather than her body to shrink.

 

 

Ok, one thing needs to be said here, the effects of what is known as spontaneous human combustion can be effectively reproduced in pig corpses and has been seen in action in human bodies as well. Burning a corpse in a crematorium is not the same thing and is not comparable. An effect known as the wicking is what allows human bodies to burn slowly with a small smokey flame. Clothes catch fire, and yes the people are though to have been dead or so far gone they couldn't resist and in most cases it is considered to be evidence of murder not an accident or some sort of supernatural thing. As the clothes burn, usually with an accelerant like alcohol, they begin to wick the fat from the body and much like a human candle over many hours the body slowly burns as the fat is wicked by clothing. Water slowly boils away as the body burns in a low temperature flame via this wicking effect, even bones contain a large amount of fat and will burn up as well due to the wicking effect.. The room is filled with a thick black smoke but no other objects are usually burned. If you try to burn a body fast as they do in crematoriums the body dones not burn as completely, crematoriums do not want to wait many hours and they try to burn the body fast using a hot flame of usually natural gas. This boils away the water and fats and makes the body harder to burn and often leaves behind hardned bones which have to be ground up. Spontaneous human combustion is not spontaneous and has been explained. It is usually murder or an attempt to get rid of a body.

 

The forensic process can determine whether flesh was burned posthumously or while the person was still alive.

 

No, not if the person was killed and set on fire with in moments of death...