Introduction

Spontaneous human combustion is a well-documented phenomenon in which a human body ignites and burns without any known contact with an external source of fire. In some cases the damage is slight. In others the victim is reduced to ashes. And in some of the strangest cases nearby objects escape relatively unscathed. The chair or bed on which the victim was sitting or lying, and even the clothes on the charred body, may be damaged or only slightly singed. Often, too, a single foot, a leg, or the tips of fingers remain intact, although the rest of the body is consumed.

Cases of spontaneous human combustion(SHC) began to appear in medical reports as far back as the 17th century, and by the 20th century the literature abounded in detailed accounts of inexplicable human incineration. Over a span of four century, more than 200 such incidents have been reported.

In earlier times the classical targets of this fiery fate were believed to be alcoholic and usually corpulent elderly women who lived alone. They almost always incinerated indoors on winter nights and were usually found near an open fire. Needless to say, there were no witnesses. Their deaths were attributed to God's punishment of their sins.

But even in those days there were exceptions, as some of the cases related in this chapter show. In fact, recent research into this strange phenomenon shows a fairly equal representation of the sexes among the victims, with ages ranging from infancy to 114 years; many were abstemious and thin. Some have combusted in the proximity of a source of fire, but others have ignited while they were driving, or simply walking in surroundings devoid of any external source of fire.

Contemporary scientific and medical opinions rejects the idea of spontaneous combustion, dismissing the many instances of inexplicable deaths by burning as simply "puzzling" or "unsolved". Although a number of theories ha been proposed, there is no sound physiological model that can explain how a human body could possibly self-ignite or how it could burn fiercely enough to be reduced to ashes. Such combustion of human tissue and bone is only possible at the extreme temperatures(over 3000 Fahrenheit) provided by a pressurized crematorium. And of course, when it comes to explaining unscorched clothing, or a fully fleshed limb associated with the ashy or charred remains, the inexplicable becomes the bizarre

Physical possibility of SHC

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 enormous amounts of heat over a long period of time. To get a chemical reaction in a human body which 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. It is true that the ignition point of human fat is low, but to get the fire going would probably require an external source. Once ignited, however, some researchers think that 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." 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.* They also found that plausible external sources of ignition, such as candles, lamps, cigarettes, fireplaces, etc., were rejected by investigators in favor of the implausible internal spontaneous combustion. There are a few other curious things about spontaneous human combustion that should be considered. Fire burns at over 200 degrees F. The human body, when alive, is usually under 100 degrees F. A corpse would tend to cool off to room temperature. If a living being ever spontaneously combusted, the warning signs would be phenomenal: a 212 degree F burning sensation! If a corpse self-ignited it would be hard to keep it burning unless the room were very, very hot. In fact, the room would have to be nearly on fire itself to keep the corpse ignited. Once a fire has started, it will be self-supporting only if the temperature created by the combustion of the burning substance is as high or higher than its ignition point. A cool body in a cool room would be unlikely to do much more than smolder a little bit if it did self-ignite.

Incidents

Before 1800

One of the earliest well-attest cases of spontaneous human combustion was recorded by Thomas Bartholin in 1673. A poor "woman of the people" was mysteriously consumed by fire in Paris. She had been a heavy drinker of "strong spirits" to the point of not taking any nourishment for three years. One evening she went to sleep on a straw pallet and was burned up during the night. In the morning only her head and the ends of her fingers were found; all the rest of her body was reduced to ashes. The incident was recounted by Pierre-Aime Lair, who in 1800 published the first comprehensive essay on the subject of human combustion(American Medicine, 9:657, April 22, 1905; Pierre- Aime, Essai sur les combustions humaines, pp.10-11)

From 1800 to 1900

Mrs Wright, the mother of John Wright, a London linen draper, was hospitalized for severe burns from which she was not expected to recover. Her injuries were the culmination of a series of strange spontaneous fires that had been plaguing the Wright household since January 5, 1820. On that date there was an unexplained small fire; then, on January 7, Mrs Wright, who had been sitting with a servant girl by the kitchen hearth, noticed her own clothes were on fire as she stood up to walk away. On January 12, her clothes flamed up again, in the presence of the same girl, but this time Mrs Wright had been nowhere near the hearth. Then sometime of the following day

Wright heard screams from the kitchen, where his mother was, and where the girl had been. He ran into the room, and found his mother in flames. Only a moment before had the girl left the kitchen, and this time Wright accused her. But it was Mrs Wright belief that the girl had nothing to do with her misfortunes, and that "something supernatural" was assailing her. She sent for her daughter, who arrived to guard her. She continued to believed that the girl could not have had nothing to with the fires and went to kitchen, where the girl was, and again "by some unknown means, she caught fire. She was so dreadful burned that she was put to bed." When she had gone to sleep, her son and daughter left the room-and immediately brought back by her screams, finding her surrounded by flames. Then the girl was told to leave the house. She left and there were no more fires. This seemed conclusive, and the Wrights caused her arrest. At the hearing, the magistrate said that he had no doubt that the girl was guilty, but that he could not pronounce sentence, until Mrs Wright should so recover as to testify. [Charles Fort, The Complete Books of Charles Fort pp. 927-28]

From 1900 to 1950

One of the youngest victims of unexplained death-by-fire, 11-month-old Peter Seaton of London, had been put to bed as usual one evening in January 1939. Soon after, a visitor, Harold Huxstep, heard screams of terror. Rushing upstairs to Peter room, Mr Huxstep opened the door to face an inferno of leaping flames that flung him back across the hall. There was no way he could rescue the baby.

After the firemen had put out the blaze, a thorough investigation of the nursery revealed nothing that could have caused such a conflagration. What was especially remarkable was that despite the intensity of the fire, hardly any of the furniture was damaged. (Michael Harrison, Fire From Heaven: A Study of Spontaneous Combustion in Human Beings, pp.6-7)

Since 1950

Not just one but six people were involved in what appears to be an instance of multiple victims of spontaneous combustion. The following account is from the Nigerian Herald of December 27, 1976: