What causes Spontaneous Human Combustion?

Question

As my gran just went up in a puff of smoke and made a mess of the sofa, so I need the info for insurance purposes!

Answer 1

The physical possibilities of spontaneous human combustion are remote. Not only is the body mostly water, but aside from fat tissue and methane gas, there isn't much that burns readily in a human body. To cremate a human body requires a temperature of 1600 degrees Fahrenheit for about two hours. To get a chemical reaction in a human body that would lead to ignition would require some doing. If the deceased had recently eaten an enormous amount of hay that was infested with bacteria, enough heat might be generated to ignite the hay, but not much besides the gut and intestines would probably burn. Or, if the deceased had been eating the newspaper and drunk some oil, and was left to rot for a couple of weeks in a well-heated room, his gut might ignite. And in each of these ludicrous scenarios additional oxygen would have to be introduced. These possibilities are so farfetched that I have no reason to believe they, or anything like them, has ever occurred.

Larry Arnold's theory that sometimes human cells are hit by a mysterious particle, the pyrotron, that causes a nuclear chain reaction inside a person's body is based on wild speculation and ignorance of cellular life and spontaneous nuclear fusion.* Some other theories without merit are:

maser (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) induction, geomagnetism, and even kundalini (a form of yoga/mystic body heating). Perhaps the most preposterous suggestion is that stress can cause a person to burst into flames (perpetuated by Larry Arnold), or that hydrogen and oxygen remain as gasses in human cells and are thus highly ignitable – in which case the reader would do well not to inhale.*

A more economical and reasonable theory of how human bodies burn in rooms without having the entire room engulfed in flames is the idea of the wick effect (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/158853.stm). The ignition point of human fat is low and to get the fire going would require an external source. Once ignited, however, a "wick effect" from the body's fat would burn hot enough in certain places to destroy even bones. To prove that a human being might burn like a candle, Dr. John de Haan of the California Criminalistic Institute wrapped a dead pig in a blanket, poured a small amount of gasoline on the blanket, and ignited it. Even the bones were destroyed after five hours of continuous burning. The fat content of a pig is very similar to the fat content of a human being. The damage to the pig, according to Dr. De Haan "is exactly the same as that from supposed spontaneous human combustion." A National Geographic special (http://www.benecke.com/shcbelgium.html) on SHC showed a failed attempt to duplicate the burning pig experiment. However, it is obvious that the failure was due to leaving the door to the room open to the outside, which created a draft and led to the flames igniting everything in the room. Had the room been closed up, as are the rooms in which many of the elderly persons have died in fires attributed to SHC, it is likely that the pig would have smoldered for several hours without the rest of the room becoming engulfed in flames.

In their investigation of a number of SHC cases, Dr. Joe Nickell and Dr. John Fisher found that when the destruction of the body was minimal, the only significant fuel source was the individual's clothes, but where the destruction was considerable, additional fuel sources increased the combustion. Materials under the body help retain melted fat that flows from the body and serves to keep it burning. The reason some bodies are totally consumed except for the legs or feet probably has to do with the fact that these victims were seated when they caught fire and flames move upward.

Some alleged cases of SHC are cases of spontaneous combustion but they are explicable by natural means. For example, a chemical reaction on or in a person's clothing can result in spontaneous combustion. The National Geographic special, mentioned above, investigated a case of a woman whose clothes suddenly caught fire and burned the skin on her thigh. The most likely explanation is that she put a shell in her pocket that was covered in sodium from a fireworks show that had taken place on the beach where she had retrieved the shell. Later, she stuck a wet handkerchief in her pocket with the shell. The sodium may have reacted with the water, releasing hydrogen that self-ignited,* causing her burns. In any case, she did not burn from the inside, as is claimed happens to SHC victims.

Richard Milton, the alternative scientist, lists several cases that he thinks are convincing proof of SHC. All but one of the cases he cites come from Larry Arnold, the one who posits an unknown particle that occasionally strikes a cell inside a person, causing a nuclear reaction. Here's a sampling.

Jean Lucille Saffin. This 61-year-old mentally handicapped woman burst into flames in her kitchen. "Her father, who was seated at a nearby table, said he saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye and turned ... to find that she was enveloped in flames, mainly around her face and hands." The fire was put out with water by Mr. Saffin and his son-in-law. No cause of the fire was found. How does this qualify as a case of SHC? Because an unnamed policeman told Saffin's relatives that that's what he believed caused Jean's death. Milton is also impressed by the fact that the father and son-in-law claim the fire lasted only a minute or two (so there should be no surprise that the rest of the room didn't go up in flames!). Milton doesn't consider that the testimony of the father and son-in-law may be tainted.

Helen Conway. You've probably seen this picture before.
Conway was an elderly, infirm woman who was a heavy and careless smoker. (There were many cigarette burns in her room.) She burned up while sitting in an upholstered chair in her bedroom. Why is this considered SHC? The fire chief said that's what he believed. He also said it only took 21 minutes for her to burn.* If it did, the wick effect would not account for how she burned. (Arnold uses some sort of "deduction" to figure out that it may have taken only six minutes for Conway's body to be consumed.) Since they can't figure out how Conway burned up in such a short time, both Arnold and Milton conclude it was probably SHC.

Joe Nickell speculates that the fire "may have begun at the base of the seated body and burned straight upward, fed by the fat in the torso, and may have thus been a much more intense fire - not unlike grease fires that all who cook are familiar with. Indeed, in searching through the dense smoke for the victim, an assistant chief sank his hand "into something greasy" that proved to be the woman's remains."*

Milton's research in this area is limited almost exclusively to Larry Arnold's book Ablaze!: The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion, a book which features a blurb from Maury Povich on its back cover. Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell refers to this work as Spontaneous Human Nonsense (http://www.csicop.org/sb/9612/shc.html).

The stories that Milton posts on his web site reveal his willingness to be dazzled by speculations about SHC. It is true that the examples he has chosen can't be explained by the wick effect because they are all of cases where the person in flames is come upon within a relatively short time of being on fire. The wick effect requires hours of slow burning. However, the evidence that any of these cases is actually a case of spontaneous human combustion is flimsy at best.

Answer 2

Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is a scientifically unsubstantiated hypothesis that suggests the burning of a person's body without an external source of ignition. Although there is much speculation and controversy over SHC, it is not a proven natural occurrence. In spite of this, many theories and hypotheses have attempted to explain SHC's existence and how it may occur, some grounded in current scientific understanding. The two most common explanations offered to account for apparent SHC are the non-spontaneous "wick effect" fire, and the rare discharge called "static flash fires".

Hope your insurance company will be satisfied with this answer!

Answer 3

Asking too many questions about Spontaneously combusting.

Answer 4

Hmm. was grandma a bale of hay? Much more common for hay bales to spontaneously combust from bacterial/fungal heat created in the tightly confined space.

Answer 5

Internal gasses accumated in the body causing an explosion from within, hence spontaneous combustion. All those beans obviously did the trick.lol

Answer 6

Spontaneous combustion per se does not exist. What does exist is the "human candle" effect whereby clothing or furniture acts as the wick and the human body fat supplies the fuel.

Answer 7

My Mother is convinced that Sponteneous Human Combustion occurs when people hold their farts in. Thats her excuse anyway.

Not sure how scientific that is though.

Answer 8

Not a proven scientific fact but methane gas is believed to cause it also, fire and explosion are possiblities, I do think this is very weird though!

Answer 9

Methane gas.

Answer 10

Some would say it doesn;t really exist (usually insurance companies)