Spontaneous combustion

The term "spontaneous combustion" can mean the self-ignition, or apparent self-ignition, and burning of any mass; often of highly flammable materials, such as a pile of oily rags; see combustion.

Spontaneous combustion (as in spontaneous human combustion) can also mean the alleged phenomenon of a human being (and, one assumes, other animals) suddenly, unexpectedly bursting into flames, in dramatic cases reducing the person's torso to a pile of ashes, often leaving behind charred limbs. Spontaneous human combustion--never actually witnessed--is actually at present a theory to explain the many cases that have been found where the torso of a person, often female, often overweight, has been reduced to ashes, without any obvious external cause. There is, of course, considerable disagreement as to what the source of such deaths might be--often it is denied that any genuine "spontaneous human combustion" ever occurs.

The most common explanation for spontaneous human combustion is that the victim was smoking, and carelessness caused something flammable (such as clothing, chair or bed) to ignite and the fire consumed them. Proponents of the human combustion theory counter that the human body is mostly water, and that crematoriums spend thousands of dollars on special incinerators strong enough to disintegrate the whole body--why not just put the body into an easy chair with a lit cigarette? Detractors tend to factor in other things: the person drank heavily and had a high alcohol content in their body, or that the victim was obese and their body fat served as fuel to the fire. Sometimes the higher body fat of women (the predominant victims of this phenomenon) is used as an an additional factor. Obesity, inebriation, or age is cited as the reason the victim didn't move fast enought to extinguish the fire. Often times, these "real world" explanations sound as far fetched as the alternative.

Ironically, until recently no one had actually bothered to find out just how flammable a human-sized body actually is. Tests done on the carcasses of pigs have demonstrated that even a small fire can ignite the fat of a body in a very short time. (can anyone find internet documentation of this???) Most people are satisfied by this explanation and consider spontaneous human combustion to be disproved.

See Anomalous Phenomena and combustion.

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