• Question: Why does spontaneous combustion happen to humans? Can it also happen to animals?

    Asked by amohamed to Lily, Mark, Paul, Sarah on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Roberts

      Mark Roberts answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Ok so whilst about 200 cases of this have been reported none have been scientifically investigated to my knowledge

      So my hypothesis as that it wasn’t spontaneous and that some other form of ignition from another source. So I don’t think it happens to humans or other animals

    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      There are definitely well documented cases of apparently “spontaneous combustion” – but we don’t know what causes it, so we can’t rule out that it was not a “biological” event but maybe caused by some other factor (smoking, electrical short circuit etc.).

      I’ve not seen any reports of this in animals, but I guess, given that we don’t know what causes it in humans, it isn’t impossible that it might occur in animals as well.

      It would need to be properly (scientifically) investigated before we knew whether it was a “real” phenomena or whether it can be explained by normal causes.

    • Photo: Lily Asquith

      Lily Asquith answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      I think spontaneous human combustion is actually not a real phenomena!

      I can imagine that it is possible in theory, but very unlikely. For something to combust, there has to be a chemical reaction. For this to happen spontaneously the body would have to produce some pretty wierd chemicals…

    • Photo: Sarah Bardsley

      Sarah Bardsley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      I don’t think there is enough evidence to support the existence of spontaneous human combustion. As a scientist you’ve always got to look for the evidence!

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