OT: Spontaneous combustion

[Ellie]

That comtaminated pond thread got me thinking about  SC . I have always been fasinated by the stories I have read about this subject. I myself do not really have any theories about this but would be interested to hear yours..

[Ellie]

Spontaneous Human Combustion.

[Master Blaster]

Personally I'm skeptical. I read about a case of SC which turned out to be nothing more than a cigarrette. It'd been believed that this woman had spontaniously combusted in her home because she had burned to death in a chair in the middle of her living room without burning the rest of the house. As it turns out she fell asleep with a cigarrette lit which caught her chair on fire, by the time she woke up she was melted to the chair, and because she was heavy the fire kept burning fueled by her bodyfat. Eventually her body was pretty much burned to ash and the fire, no longer having fuel to burn from went out, leaving not much more than a black stain on the chair. It was just a strange freak accident. I wont claim SC is 100% impossible, or that I've examined all the information there is out there, I just havent heard or seen anything that makes me think it's more than an urban myth.

[odinn7]

I'm with Blaster on this one. I saw a show on this a few years ago and that's essentially what was uncovered about SHC. Body fat fuels the fire and when it's done, the fire pretty much goes out. I believe CSI did something like this also using a pig (not like that really matters). I can't say that it won't or doesn't happen, but until I see it with my own eyes, I'll have to remain skeptical.
I do know that I've tried to light people on fire using my mind but that didn't seem to work either...

[Eirik]

I think it's a concept developed by lazy fire marshalls (the guys who investigate the causes of fire).  

"Hmm...  no cans of lighter fluid or flame throwers lying around...  Oh, I'll just write "spontaneous combustion."  Nobody'll check."

[Mr_Vindictive]

I'm a bit of a skeptic as well when it comes to SHC but anything is possible.

I don't completely agree with most cases being written off as smoking related.  I was a fireman for a few years and during one of the training classes, we did a test to see if someone could actually be set ablaze by falling asleep with a lit cigarette.

The answer is yes and no.

Say you are a smoker, and you're sitting in bed smoking a cigarette when you fall asleep.  The cigarette falls beside you on the bed.  If the cigarette is laying on it's side, then there is little chance of catching fire.  There is just enough room between the cherry of the cigarette and the blanket/comforter/etc to pull in air to the cherry - which means that the area below the cherry is not actually hot.  

But, say then that in your sleep you roll over and the blanket/your pajamas fall on top of the cigarette, then you would have a fire.

Now I have no doubt that some SHC cases were caused by the latter situation.  But, I'm sure there have been some cases where the person was not a smoker and yet are still unsolved as to why they burst into flames.

[raj]

Those people might have been poisoned/strangled and then set on fire.
What's interesting, that I saw from those shows which set a pig on fire (dead pig) is that the pig will mostly burn up but the surroundings do not catch on fire.

[peter johnson]

There are several problems with the cigarette/body-fat model:
1)  It takes massive amounts of heat to reduce a body to ash.  Ask anyone in the mortuary industry & they'll tell you it takes forced flames of thousands of degrees Centigrade to combust a body.
2)  Even if the person in question is very fat, there simply isn't enough fat on a human body to reduce it to ash
* * *
None of the skeptical models of SHC can explain how extremely high temperatures remain isolated in this very limited space, ie;  Why doesn't the whole building burn down, with that much heat?
It is next to impossible to set someone on fire with a cigarette.  Or anything short of a thermite grenade, for that matter.  Human beings are not highly flammable things.  As the Klingons say, "Bags of mostly water".  Water doesn't burn well.
Based on what I've read about SHC, it is a recognized phenomena that predates cigarettes & gasoline accelerants, etc., in the home.  Charles Dickens made reference to it in 2 of his works.  There are older references as well.
Check out www.forteantimes.com for links to theories and discussions on SHC.  It ain't a closed case.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Eirik]

"Say you are a smoker, and you're sitting in bed smoking a cigarette when you fall asleep. The cigarette falls beside you on the bed. If the cigarette is laying on it's side, then there is little chance of catching fire. There is just enough room between the cherry of the cigarette and the blanket/comforter/etc to pull in air to the cherry - which means that the area below the cherry is not actually hot."

Ahh, but if the person was doused in gin would that not change the equation?

Wasn't there an episode of Kolshak about this?

[Eirik]

"What's interesting, that I saw from those shows which set a pig on fire (dead pig) is that the pig will mostly burn up but the surroundings do not catch on fire."

Ahh, but if the pig were ALIVE would that not change the equation?

[ulthar]

Skaboi wrote:

>
> Say you are a smoker, and you're sitting in bed smoking a
> cigarette when you fall asleep.  The cigarette falls beside you
> on the bed.  If the cigarette is laying on it's side, then
> there is little chance of catching fire.  There is just enough
> room between the cherry of the cigarette and the
> blanket/comforter/etc to pull in air to the cherry - which
> means that the area below the cherry is not actually hot.  
>
> But, say then that in your sleep you roll over and the
> blanket/your pajamas fall on top of the cigarette, then you
> would have a fire.
>

I used to do arson investigation, and I remember one class in particular we took specifically dealt with cigarettes starting fires.  The conditions have to be just right.  A dropped cigarette does not always start a fire, and often just burns out.

That said, I once photographed a fatality scene for the NC SBI where that was, in fact, how the fire started.  One dude died, while his brother suffered 3rd degree burns trying to get him out.  It was not a case of just the person burning up and nothing else, though.  The whole house was in rubble.

I don't recall SHC being one of our choices in "Cause" for the fires we investigated.  We did have an "Unknown" category, though, but we worked very, very hard to not use it.

[ulthar]

Eirik wrote:

> "What's interesting, that I saw from those shows which set a
> pig on fire (dead pig) is that the pig will mostly burn up but
> the surroundings do not catch on fire."
>
> Ahh, but if the pig were ALIVE would that not change the
> equation?

Actually, yes it would.  A dead pig is (presumably) still, so it is not exposing other fuel load to the fire.  A live pig, ooh, might move around (okay, it probably would unless HEAVILY sedated or comatose), possibly igniting other fuels in the area.

Just a thought....

[ulthar]

peter johnson wrote:

> There are several problems with the cigarette/body-fat model:
> 1)  It takes massive amounts of heat to reduce a body to ash.
> Ask anyone in the mortuary industry & they'll tell you it takes
> forced flames of thousands of degrees Centigrade to combust a
> body.

Actually, crematoria do not reduce an entire body to ash, either.  There are often large sections of bone left over.  They pass the remains through a chipper to pulverize those bones so it blends better with the ash.

> 2)  Even if the person in question is very fat, there simply
> isn't enough fat on a human body to reduce it to ash
> * * *
> None of the skeptical models of SHC can explain how extremely
> high temperatures remain isolated in this very limited space,
> ie;  Why doesn't the whole building burn down, with that much
> heat?

Well, just to play devil's advocate here, there are TWO key parameters in the heat transfer equations: the temperature and TIME.  If something burned very hot, but very fast, it would not necessarily expose the surrounding fuel to sufficient energy to ignite.  Hold a match flame (which is plenty HOT enough) next to a 2x4 and it won't ignite; the total energy transfer is too small to vaporize sufficient volatiles to their ignition temperature.

In firefighting/fire investigation, we do see very hot fires all the time that don't spread much at all.

> It is next to impossible to set someone on fire with a
> cigarette.  

This is true.

>Or anything short of a thermite grenade, for that
> matter.

This is not.

> Human beings are not highly flammable things.  

Well, yes and no.  I see your point (mostly water), but we ARE made of organic compounds that ARE flammable.  Plus, the clothes we wear ARE very flammable, which is probably more the issue.  People do, in fact burn.  The water is contained in the cellular protoplasm and is surrounded by that organic matter.  Besides, if something is burning hot enough in an open space, the water will not put out the fire anyway (it will boil and just 'float away').


> Based on what I've read about SHC, it is a recognized phenomena
> that predates cigarettes & gasoline accelerants, etc., in the
> home.  Charles Dickens made reference to it in 2 of his works.
> There are older references as well.

Man has been around flammable materials for many millenia.  Gun powder has been known for a couple thousand years; hydrocarbon fuels have been used for various things for a long time.  Just because it is not refined into gasoline does not mean it's not been around, and readily available, for a long time.  Coal is a good example.

Just throwing this stuff out there, I really don't have a SHC theory other than to say on the one hand, we don't understand everything that goes on around us, and on the other, whenever something SEEMS to be a mystery (because it is not understood at the time of observation), supernatural-esque explanations take hold.



Post Edited (04-28-05 21:59)

[Master Blaster]

And at what point in the burning process does the pig become delicious?

[ulthar]

Between medium and well done.