Oklahoma cops rake ashes of 'spontaneous combustion' victim Investigators in Oklahoma are attempting to determine just how a 65-year-old man was largely incinerated while his timber-framed house suffered minimal damage, in what the the local sheriff described as a possible case of spontaneous human combustion. Danny VanZandt was found burning on the kitchen floor in his home between …
i.e. all the fat in a persons body acting like tallow while clothing acts as a wick?
I remember reading 'The Unexplained' when I was a kid and being completely grossed out by the picture of an SHC victim. Just some legs sticking out of a charred pile.
Yep, the 'inside out candle' theory. Different materials react differently to temperatures and time- in a crematorium, (high temperature, short duration) steel balls are used to crush the bones, whereas lower temperatures sustained for a longer period can reduce bones to ash.
Wow! That brings back memories of the early 1980s. The Unexplained I should - erm - explain - not having spontananeously combusted myself.
To bring back another raft of memories, didn't QED do this experiment with a pig carcass wrapped in muslin? My memory isn't what it used to be and it's so very long since BBC1 actually did science programming.
I don't know if it was QED, but yes there was a programme about it where they used a pig to substitute a human. I think the very same photo the rest of the commentators above recall was shown on-screen. I recall the photo, but never read "Unexplained". It may have featueed in Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World too...
Bring back Horizon, QED, and Equinox in all their technical 1970s/80s glory.
I'm off to start a petition.
Like other victims of 'spontaneous human combustion', this was an old person who smoked. I'm willing to bet he had health problems, and quite possibly had a drink problem too. The human wick effect is the best explanation I've seen for this phenomenon. Either that, or God has it in for harmless old folk.
this was an old person who smoked. I'm willing to bet he had health problems, and quite possibly had a drink problem too
So, your theory is that the alcohol basically caught fire through his smoking? Works for me :p
That's probably also a good reason not to cremate alcoholics - the risk of combustion..
From the article
"You get called to the house where there's a body inside, and you expect the house to be burnt down. This house is intact. There is a stove and ice box within 3 feet from where the body's burning, and the handles are not melted."
Only VanZandt's head, hands and feet survived the fire. Lockhart said of the remains: "You could pour gasoline on somebody and he wouldn't be as badly incinerated."
The wick effect creates a slow, smoldering fire. Not only is the above description consistent with the wick effect, it is entirely expected. And the hands, feet and head, the extremities, don't contain enough fat content to maintain the burning.
In conclusion, why is this even news?
Further, the hands, feet and head are generally not closely covered by material that makes a good wick.
A good question would be: have there been cases of apparent SHC where the victim had well defined, uncovered areas of their body that did not suffer serious burning, or had a different kind of burn pattern to covered areas? e.g. bare forearms or bare lower legs?
Its a chance mutation in common gut bacteria, which breaks the NADH channel.
This results in sugar being metabolised into simpler sugars and hydrogen , which then spontaneously ignites causing a short lived but devastating (to the victim) fire.
As the heat source is internal the wick effect swiftly takes over, resulting in near complete combustion.
The same effect has been theorised to be the cause of some lithium ion battery fires, however in this case gas being produced by the bacteria as they break down carbon compounds found in the electrolyte eventually ruptures the internal separators and causes a short circuit if it doesen't ignite by itself first.
AC/DC
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