User:JulieMay54/spontaneous human combustion

Natural explanations

 * Many cases of SHC involve persons with low mobility due to advanced age or obesity, along with poor health.[12] Victims show a high likelihood of having died in their sleep, or of being unable to move once they had caught fire.
 * Cigarettes are often seen as the source of fire, as the improper disposal of smoking materials causes one of every four fire deaths in the United States.[13] Natural causes such as heart attacks may lead to the victim dying, subsequently dropping the cigarette, which after a period of smouldering can ignite the victim's clothes.[14]
 * The "wick effect" hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with animal tissue (pig) and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.[15][16] The human body typically has enough stored energy in fat and other chemical stores to fully combust the body; even lean people have several pounds of fat in their tissues. This fat, once heated by the burning clothing, wicks into the clothing much as candle wax (which typically was originally made of animal fat) wicks into a lit candle wick to provide the fuel needed to keep the wick burning.[17] The protein in the body also burns, but provides less energy than fat, with the water in the body being the main impediment to combustion. However, slow combustion, lasting hours, gives the water time to evaporate slowly. In an enclosed area, such as a house, this moisture will recondense nearby, such as on windows.[citation needed] Note that feet often have the least fat, so don't typically burn. (Hands also have little fat, but may burn if on the abdomen, which provides all the needed fat.)
 * John Abrahamson suggested that ball lightning could account for spontaneous human combustion. "This is circumstantial only, but the charring of human limbs seen in a number of ball lightning cases are very suggestive that this mechanism may also have occurred where people have had limbs combusted," says Abrahamson.[18]
 * Scalding can cause burn-like injuries, including death, without setting fire to clothing. Although not applicable in cases where the body is charred and burnt, this has been suggested as a cause in at least one claimed SHC-like event.[19]
 * Brian J. Ford has suggested that ketosis, possibly caused by alcoholism or low-carbohydrate dieting, produces acetone, which is highly flammable and could therefore lead to apparently spontaneous combustion.[20][21]
 * SHC can be confused with Self immolation as a form of suicide. In the West self immolation accounts for 1% of suicides while Radford claims in developing countries the figure can be as high as 40%
 * Sometimes there are reasonable explanations for the deaths, but proponents ignore official autopsies and contradictory evidence, in favor of anecdotal accounts and personal testimonies.[14][19][22]