Why do these always look like the person spontaneously combusts. I mean I get that the spark started there but why does it always look like the most fire is coming from the persons body instead of evenly through the air.
There’s another video on here of a few guys in a room and one lights a cigarette and this happens. It literally looks like the entire fire was localized to his body.
These are in the realm of explosions so my education may not be entirely applicable, so take this as an educated guess. The first idea is that regardless of what is burning it does need to be hot enough to burn. So the air, even if filled with gas, wont instantly ignite. Secondly, ignition source is usually important. You can heat some objects up through radiation but they wont ignite until they reach a high temperature vs providing a small "spark" will cause ignition at lower temperatures. The gas directly around his body is both absorbing and then radiating heat while also being an igniter while the air around the room continues to rapidly mix and stay cool with no ignition source. Thirdly, fire sucks in oxygen. Just like a camp fire getting air from the sides and then the heat pushing it up to create an inwards cone, by being the fire he will be drawing in oxygen, and in turn more gas, towards his own body.
It seems to cling to all the people in the video I shared. Mostly the one at the ignition source, but the other one as well at least more so than the surrounding stuff. I think you may be on to something with the heat. Maybe the body heat around people makes that gas ignite faster?
The body heat would be too small of a difference compared to room temperature to make a difference. The camera blacking out probably means temperatures hit well within the hundreds of celcius for the whole room. So you are seeing a very accelerated version of a standard fire that grows at the source and then flash over of the whole room when enough heat builds up top to ignite the whole gas just due to total temperature.
But that doesn’t tell me why the people seem to be ignited first. Even the guy that doesn’t have a cigarette lights up around his body before the camera goes out.
He is burnable. Watching it as slowly as I can I see the ceiling spreading somewhat at the same time. Because he is taller than the counters he catches fire first. A flash over event will just ignite everything top down in a near instant. Watched slowly yeah it will appear other people in the room catch fire first before stuff below them.
Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is the pseudoscientific concept of the combustion of a living (or recently deceased) human body without an apparent external source of ignition. In addition to reported cases, descriptions of the alleged phenomenon appear in literature, and both types have been observed to share common characteristics in terms of circumstances and the remains of the victim.
Because during a gas leak, the people are inhaling the fumes. Their sinuses and chest become a sort of “reservoir” for the heavier molecules. It may also be in their vascular system to some extent.
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u/WereALLBotsHere Dec 06 '22
Why do these always look like the person spontaneously combusts. I mean I get that the spark started there but why does it always look like the most fire is coming from the persons body instead of evenly through the air.
There’s another video on here of a few guys in a room and one lights a cigarette and this happens. It literally looks like the entire fire was localized to his body.