http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614
Such a weird phenomena.
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by lucky » Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:23 am
by Project Willow » Mon Sep 26, 2011 4:58 pm
Wick effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The wick effect is the name given to the partial destruction of a human body by fire, when the clothing of the victim soaks up melted human fat and acts like the wick of a candle. The wick effect is a phenomenon that has been proven to occur under certain conditions, and thoroughly observed. It is one commonly offered explanation for the alleged phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion (SHC).
Details
The wick effect theory essentially says that a person is burned through his/her own fats after being ignited, accidentally or otherwise. The clothed human body acts like an "inside-out" candle, with the fuel source (human fat) inside and the wick (the clothing of the victim) outside. Hence there is a continuous supply of fuel in the form of melting fat seeping into the victim's clothing. Fat contains a large amount of energy due to the presence of long hydrocarbon chains.[1]
[edit] Examples
[edit] 1963 Leeds case
An investigation of a 1963 case in Leeds included an experiment with a wick effect. A small portion of human fat was wrapped in cloth to simulate clothing. A Bunsen burner flame was then applied to the 'candle'. Due to the high water content of human fat the flame had to be held on the 'candle' for over a minute before it would catch fire:
"One end of the candle was ignited by a Bunsen flame, the fat catching fire after about a minute. Although the Bunsen was removed at this point, combustion of the fat proceeded slowly along the length of the roll, with a smoky yellow flame and much production of soot, the entire roll being consumed after about one hour."[2]
This gives some indication of the slow speed with which the wick effect will proceed.
[edit] 1991 Oregon murder
In February 1991, in woodland near Medford, Oregon, USA, two hikers came across the burning body of a female adult, lying face down in fallen leaves. They alerted the officials and a local deputy sheriff soon arrived. The victim was described as "well nourished": a common pathologist's euphemism for minor to substantially overweight.[original research?] She had been stabbed several times in the upper regions of the chest and back. Both arms were spread outwards from the torso. The lower legs and surface of the neck showed signs of fire damage. The soft tissues of the right arm, torso and upper legs were consumed. The majority of bones of these parts retained their integrity, although friability was increased. Between mid-chest and knees the fleshy parts of the body were mostly destroyed. Crime scene personnel reported that the pelvis and spine were "not recoverable", having been reduced to a grey powder. Her killer had soaked the clothes and corpse in nearly a pint of barbecue starter fluid and set her on fire. In the well-oxygenated outdoor environment, this combination of circumstances—an immobile and clothed body with a high fat-to-muscle ratio, accelerant (lighter fluid), and artificial ignition—made it prime for the wick effect to occur. The murderer was arrested and made a full confession. He claimed to have set the body alight some thirteen hours before it was discovered.[3]
[edit] 1998 experiment
A larger scale experiment conducted for the BBC television program Q.E.D. involved a pig's body being wrapped in a blanket and placed in a furnished room. The blanket was lit with the aid of a small amount of petrol. The body took some time to ignite and burned at a very high temperature with low flames. The heat collected at the top of the room and melted a television. However, the flames caused very little damage to the surroundings, and the body burned for a number of hours before it was extinguished and examined. On examination it was observed that the flesh and bones in the burnt portion had been destroyed.[4]
[edit] 2006 Geneva case
In October 2006 the body of a man was discovered at home in Geneva, almost completely incinerated between the mid-chest and the knees, most probably due to heart attack while smoking, followed by the wick effect. The chair containing the body was mostly consumed, but other objects in the room were almost undamaged, albeit covered with a brown oily or greasy coating. The source of the fire was most likely a cigarette or cigar. The man's dog also died in another room of the man's apartment; this was attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning.[5]
[edit] 2010 Ireland case
In December 2010, a cremated body of a man was found in his home in Clareview Park, Ballybane, Galway (Parris-Long, 2011). The fire investigators concluded that no accelerants were used and that the open fireplace was not the cause of the fire. The coroner in the case could not identify the cause of the death due to extensive internal organ damage and concluded that "this [case] fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation".[6]
[edit]
by Seamus OBlimey » Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:07 pm
Dr McLoughlin said he had consulted medical textbooks and carried out other research in an attempt to find an explanation.
He said Professor Bernard Knight, in his book on forensic pathology, had written about spontaneous combustion and noted that such reported cases were almost always near an open fireplace or chimney.
by Freitag » Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:39 pm
by lucky » Wed Sep 28, 2011 4:28 am
by Elvis » Sat Dec 23, 2017 11:45 am
Monday, December 18, 2017
COMBUSTIBLE WALKING
Did you see this in the London Evening Standard? Spontaneous human combustion is one of those things that I look into every now and then in a brief intense way and then forget about. Still, I don’t think I ever heard of anybody combusting while walking.
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Man bursts into flames and dies in front of horrified onlookers while walking down London street
Specialist fire investigators found no obvious reason why John Nolan, 70, might have caught alight
JUSTIN DAVENPORT Crime Editor
John Nolan, 70, caught fire in a street in Haringey and died
Police today appealed for witnesses after a man died after catching fire as he walked down a street in north London
Passers-by saw John Nolan, 70, ablaze in a street in Haringey in the middle of the day and attempted to put out the flames before calling police and fire crews.
The former construction worker, who was originally from County Mayo in Ireland, was taken to a specialist hospital but died later.
Today detectives said his death was being treated as unexplained. There were no accelerants found on his body and specialist fire investigators could find no obvious reason for Mr Nolan to catch alight.
Mr Nolan, who lived in Haringey, was found in Orchard Place at 1pm on Sunday September 17 after calls from the public.
PC Damien Ait-Amer, who is investigating the death, said: “We have spoken with a number of witnesses who saw Mr Nolan ablaze, but we have yet to establish how the fire started.
“Mr Nolan was a well-liked member of the community and none of our enquiries so far have indicated that he had been involved in a dispute of any sort. Nor does any account given by witnesses suggest that he had been in contact with another person at the time of the fire.”
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Most of the literature will tell you there’s no such thing as SHC, and Charles Dickens often gets the blame for spreading the urban myth. He seems to have believed in it, not least as a plot device: in Bleak House Mr. Krook, a man in the recycling trade, does indeed die that way, though not while walking. This from Dickens’ 1853 preface to the novel.
“The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject. There are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of the Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at Verona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The appearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the appearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous instance happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in that case is Le Cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by France. The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher court, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that she had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion is given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts, and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at page 30, vol. ii., the recorded opinions and experiences of distinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in more modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually received.”
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http://hollywoodwalker.blogspot.com/201 ... lking.html
by Elvis » Fri Jan 05, 2018 2:43 am
by minime » Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:03 pm
Elvis » Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:43 am wrote:The topic tonight on the "Coast to Coast AM" radio show is spontaneous human combustion.
by elfismiles » Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:09 pm
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