• Question: Could a human spontaneously combust?

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi on 25 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      There have actually been cases where humans burst into flames for no apparent reason – with no evidence of an external fire. But there must be a reason!

      Human bodies are not very flammable, so how, and if it does happen, a flammable substance must be produced, but it’s not known how this happens. There are many theories though, but we don’t have a solid explanation for this phenomenon. One theory is that the fat in our body liquefies into our skin which could spontaneously ignite, others suggest a solvent called acetone is produced in alcoholics which is a flammable substance.

      A very intriguing question, wolfman29!

    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Spontaneous is a “bad” word, or at least a tricky word because it specifically means without cause. Scientifically nothing happens without a cause.

      In the case of spontaneous human combustion, it’s suggesting that they caught fire FOR NO REASON AT ALL. If a human “could spontaneously combust” then there must be a reason, and a mechanism by which it could happen… in which case its not spontaneous!

      What really is mean when the term is used is that someone caught fire, and we couldn’t figure out the reason. Of course there WAS a reason – we just don’t know what it was.

      It’s a little bit like the term UFO. Do UFO’s exist… of course they do… there are Objects that Fly, which get seen by people who are Unable to identify them, Ironically if an alien space ship did land on the school football pitch it would’t be a UFO!! Apart from the fact it just landed so its no longer flying, its no longer Unidentified – ITS AN ALIEN SPACE SHIP!!! (not that I think UFO’s are spaceships – there are almost certainly NOT aliens visiting the planet).

      Humans do occasionally catch fire, and we can’t figure out how it happened. We can’t REALLY call it spontaneous combustion (even though newspapers might), because even though we don’t know the cause, there must have been one. There’s certainly a perfectly rational explanation, even though we might not know what it is. When we figure it out, it won’t be spontaneous any more!

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