Spontaneous Human Combustion?

Wonderful theories. But not totally applicable to the facts of the cases. None of them explain the fire not burning or setting fire the surrounding areas. as the fires would have had to have been many thousands of degrees.

There is always an explaination to most cases. One case a man was smoking near an oxygen tank. He was on oxygen. Another case a woman who was mentally retarded accidently swallowed burning embers from a cigar. She was put out and lived for a short time.
In one case a woman was drinking alchol, smoking and feel asleep. The reason why it only affected that area is because the fire was put shorting after. This subject always frightened me and as a kid I often would have panic attacks over this issue.
Can anyone come up with a good theory to debunk this? There was a time when I can't even see or hear these words without panicking. I really hope that all the cases can be debunked which I think they can.

I hate to conclude this with a laugh but, HA! Still haven't answered the question of my previous post. Look up how many degrees it takes to burn a human body, even parts of it, to ash. Somewhere around 3000 degrees. So you are saying 3000 degrees is not enough to set fire to the surrounding areas? Please. 3000 degrees is more than enough to cause a flashpoint situation. If you dont know what a flashpoint i suggest you ask a firefighter. The point being here is that any heat strong enough to incinerate a human body, or even part of it, would set fire to the surrounding area. Until ANY of you satisfactorily explain this conundrum i will consider you to be grasping at straws. Good day sirs.

Ah, this is a subject I have not heard about in quite a while, even on ATS... So it is good..

In fact it has been a long time since even I have thought about it, I am trying to remember... I seem to remember reading books in the library about it and how usually there is a fire source near by... Such as cigarettes that had been smoked recently...

So that does give cause to think that perhaps they just burned themselves to death... But then what causes the extreme burning often leaving nothing but the feet?

Well, I don't know.Perhaps they had some sort of accelerant on them? Something that would cause them to burn faster and at higher temperatures such as gasoline? Why they would have any on them is beyond me, but I am trying to think of logical explanations....

I just can't think of any supernatural reason that a body would just burst into flames...

I had a biology teacher who postulated that spontaneous human combustion might be some sort of crazy malfunction within the mitochondria in multiple cells. It sounds highly unlikely but as least slightly plausible.

Well, in most cases there is always some substance that helped the combustion.

Originally posted by Mari4199
Wonderful theories. But not totally applicable to the facts of the cases. None of them explain the fire not burning or setting fire the surrounding areas. as the fires would have had to have been many thousands of degrees.

I remember seeing something about people who walk on burning coals at some point. They said that they can do it because the rocks(or whatever) they're walking on are so porous and full of air that, while the part that's in contact with the fire is super hot, the top part is relatively cool.

Maybe there is a slow burning hot fire smoldering inside the body, but the outside remains relatively cool. As the fire burns, the outside of the body dries out and burns at a much lower temperature. It's a self contained burn like inside an oven.