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spontaneous human combustion

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Tom W:
Whats everyones thoughts? From what I have read it seems that...

1- The burning is never spontaneous. There is always an ignition source present in the room nearby the victim.

2- The body is normally more severely burned than one that has been caught in a normal fire. The burns are not distributed evenly over the body; the extremities are usually untouched by fire, whereas the torso usually suffers severe burning. In many cases the torso is completely destroyed, the bones being reduced completely to ash.

3- In 80% of cases the victims are female. A large proportion of victims were also overweight or alcoholics. Furthermore, death usually occurred after the victim had been drinking.

4- The combustion is localized to the body. Almost no fire damage is done to other objects in the vicinity of the body. Often the victims clothes are left untouched by the fire.

5- The floor around the deceased is often covered with a viscous, foul smelling, oily yellow liquid.

6- All cases occur inside. The victim is was always alone for a long period of time. It is always fatal. Witnesses who were nearby (eg in adjacent rooms) never heard any sounds, such as cries of pain or calls for assistance.

So whats your thoughts? Anyone experienced a case of it?

AnthonyB:
Years ago there was a documentary (I think it was this BBC one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2bF1YKL8Y) about this subject where several incidents were investigated & various theories explaining it tested scientifically using pig carcasses.

It was so many years ago but without re-watching it I seem to remember that:

- Some form of ignition source, even a small one, was involved.
- the clothing on the consumed parts had a wick effect like a candle that was made with the wicking surrounding the fat/wax rather than running through the middle of it. Areas bare, not clothed in the right material, or devoid of large amounts of fat would often be only partly consumed or even unburnt.

Golden:
Hi Piglet, I saw the case today from Ireland which I assume caught your eye too. I did some research into this many years ago when investigating a fatality which had a few similarities to previously reported cases of SHC - although clearly wasn't it just sparked an interest into the phenomenon. As I said it was many years ago and my conclusion at the time was that there was always an ignition source in the vicinity as you mentioned that could  have started the combustion. My thoughts were that the person has started to burn externally and then flaming combustion had ceased due to lack of oxygen but that that a wicking effect of the persons body fats took over and the body continued to smoulder.

I'd not heard that the persons clothes were untouched which would completely blow my theory!

I did attend an incident in Paddington where an elderly woman had pulled a storage heater over onto her lower leg when trying to get up from a fall, we were called by a neighbour smelling burning about 8-10 hours later. The leg had completely burnt away, bone too, with no other damage to the area. The woman was still concious when I got there and was apologising for causing so much fuss; to this day I can't begin to imagine the pain she went through and how much courage she showed. The relevance to SHC is that there was complete combustion of the flesh with no flaming combustion and possibly a similar process to what happens in the SHC victims.

There was some published research that stated a number of cases and maybe some of the FI people on here can shed some light. I remain a sceptic.

Link to BBC story and magazine article below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4456428.stm

SamFIRT:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614


--- Quote ---Forensic experts found that a fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the badly burnt body was found, had not been the cause of the blaze that killed Mr Faherty.
--- End quote ---

How can they be sure? By implication from this report the fire was lit; could not a spark or fragment of burning material from the fire not have started a smoulder in the man’s clothing? I can find no reference to his clothing not being burnt. It says in this report the floor below and the ceiling above were both damaged by fire and that the victim was found lying near an open fire.

I have seen four cases such as this, one whilst serving as a Fire Fighter and three others as a Fire investigator.

I am satisfied all the ones I have seen can be explained using the wick / smoulder effect theory.

Tom W:
Very interesting. Thanks for your comments and insights. Its not the sort of thing I can bring up in conversation down the pub but i knew you guys would be up for it!

It is strange how they seem to discount the fire entirely as a cause of ignition. We all know sparks can jump out so it does seem to make sense unless there was a really big well built fire guard.

Depending on the clothing they were wearing surely the pure heat could of ignited the clothing then onto the wick effect.

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