What is spontaneous human combustion? Spontaneous combustion occurs when an object -- in the case of spontaneous human combustion, a person -- bursts into flame from a chemical reaction within, apparently without being ignited by an external heat source.
The first known account of spontaneous human combustion comes from the Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin in 1663, who described how a woman in Paris "went up in ashes and smoke" while she was sleeping. The straw mattress on which she slept was unmarred by the fire. In 1673, a Frenchman named Jonas Dupont published a collection of spontaneous combustion cases in his work "De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis."
In December 1956, Virginia Caget of Honolulu, Hawaii, walked into the room of Young Sik Kim, a 78-year-old disabled person, to find him enveloped in blue flames. By the time firemen arrived on the scene, Kim and his easy chair were ashes. Strangely enough, nearby curtains and clothing were untouched by fire, in spite of the fierce heat that would have been necessary to consume a human being.
On August 19, 1966, Doris Lee Jacobs of Occano, California, burned to death in her trailer home at 1342 23rd Street. Although Jacobs suffered burns on over 95 percent of her body, the inside of the trailer was only partially scorched. Officials could offer no explanation for the fire, because it was the woman, not the trailer, who had burst into flames.
And most recently, on March 24, 1997, 76-year-old John O'Connor was found dead in his living room at Gortaleen in northern Ireland. An intense and localized heat had left only his head, upper torso, and feet unburned, as well as the chair in which he was sitting. There was very little smoke damage done to the room or the furniture.
These are just a few examples of the hundreds of alleged cases of spontaneous human combustion. Moving on…
What makes the charred bodies in the photos of SHC so peculiar is that the extremities often remain intact, as noted in the case of John O’Connor earlier. Although the torso and head are charred beyond recognition, the hands, feet, and/or part of the legs may be unburned. Also, the room around the person shows little or no signs of a fire, aside from a greasy residue that is sometimes left on furniture and walls. In rare cases, the internal organs of a victim remain untouched while the outside of the body is charred.
It takes a crematorium over 8 hours burning at 2000 degrees F to consume a body to mostly ash. To completely consume a body by fire, the fire needs to be 3000+ degrees F. At temperatures like that, everything in the surrounding area should be caught up in flame. In my own line of work, working with fire fighters at training burns, rooms that are around 1000 degrees F can flash over and fill a whole room. That’s the most interesting part of SHC. In most cases the SHC victim and what they are sitting in are consumed by the fire--with little to no damage in the rest of the dwelling.
This is best showcased in the classic case of Mary H. Reeser of St. Petersburg, Florida. She was last seen relaxing comfortably in an armchair in her apartment at 9:00 P.M. on Sunday evening, July 2, 1951. When a telegram was delivered to her 11 hours later, nothing remained of the 170-pound woman, but a skull that had shrunk to the size of a baseball, one vertebra, and a left foot wearing the charred remains of a black slipper.
St. Petersburg Fire Chief Nesbit said that he had never seen anything like it in all his years of investigating fires. St. Pete Police Chief J. R. Reichart received an FBI report stating that there was no evidence that any kind of inflammable fluids, volatile liquids, chemicals, or other accelerants had been used to set the widow's body ablaze. A spokesman for a St. Petersburg mattress company pointed out that there is not enough material in any overstuffed chair to cremate a human body. Cotton, he said, comprises the basic stuffing of such a chair, and this material is often combined with felt and hair or foam-rubber cushions. None of these materials is capable of bursting suddenly into violent flames, although they do possess properties that enable them to smolder for long periods of time.
The Reese case puzzled many investigators and scientists of the time. Dr. Wilton Krogman, professor of physical anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, was the most notable scientist to review the case. Dr. Krogman remarked that he had never seen a skull so shrunken or a body so completely consumed by heat. Such evidence was contrary to normal experience, and he regarded it as the most amazing thing he had ever seen. If he were living in the Middle Ages, he mused, he would suspect black magic. Maybe there is a ‘black magic’ or paranormal side to SHC?
SHC to this day is unexplainable. It strikes without warning and leaves no clues as to why it happened. There is no standard rule about who it will affect and who is more susceptible than others. Still to this day, no one scientist, investigator, or fireman has put together the set of circumstances that must occur for a body to burst into flames..instantly and without no known cause. Personally, I’ll keep drinking water and hope it isn’t me.
