I answered this question before as follows:

-- Quote

Apparently many supposed victims of sponataneous combustion turned out to be smokers who were drunk and fell asleep with a lit cigarette or pipe.

Scientists are unconvinced that there is any such thing as true spontaneous combustion, though some people continue to believe in it.

More info here:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/shc.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4456428.stm

-- /Quote

http://www.mahalo.com/answers/entertainment/spontaneous-human-combustion-urban-legend-or-an-unconfirmed-truth

That is the best info I found last time around with quite a bit of looking.
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a scientific explanation called the "wick effect". ... convinced that SHC was fact as he had seen evidence of it. ...
Source(s):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4456428.stm

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I found a cool site with several case reports for spontaneous combustion!

"Spontaneous Human Combustion" is the name given to those events in which humans appear to have burst into flames with no external ignition source; in short, events in which people appear to have unnaturally self-ignited. The known claims of evidence for Spontaneous Human Combustion are listed here in chronological order.

http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.shtml

http://theshadowlands.net/spon4.jpg

http://theshadowlands.net/spon.htm
Source(s):
http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00013.shtml

http://theshadowlands.net/spon4.jpg

http://theshadowlands.net/spon.htm

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Wow... a little warning on the graphic pics would have been nice as I scrolled down (sigh).

I did some extensive research into the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion and there are believers and disbelievers. Some people claim to have proof, and the proof is supposed to prove it is true and isn't true.

So far, I've read literally hundreds of supposed/presumed cases of SHC, and there's only one I can find that can't be explained any other way.

I'm not sure if I believe in it or not, but the idea or concept of it is quite scary.

As a fiction writer, the concept of it is quite.... enticing. I mean, think about the ways that could be used by a fiction writer?

Anyway, I finally stopped researching about it when the images from the pics (like the ones above) in full color, began to creep into my mind at the worst times, and of course, nightmares. I'm not usually a very 'creepable' person, but this one got to me.

It's a fascinating subject though and a great question.

Love and stuff,
Michy
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There is no scientific evidence for *spontanious* human combustion.

There *is* evidence that when hot enough, fat human bodies will burn like torches.

Photos of "combusted" people show areas where hands and feet are laying about aproximatly where hands and feet would have been if attached to a body, and there's usually evidence of there once having been there a big, comfortable, cushiony chair, the walls around it show the striation of torch-flaming, and there's usually an ashtray kicking about.

There's also almost always tangential evidence of the person having been drunk, i.e., a finished 26 of borbon laying close by.

It looks like the fat person got drunk, passed out in a cushy chair full of combustible padding with a lit cigarette, and was too drunk to feel the pain and wake up before the burning chair got the body hot enough for the outer layers of fat to get hot enough to start burning, even though body fat is wet.

Yes it is possible for wet fat to burn if hot enough. Ever seen how a wet candle will sputter and hiss, but if it's big enough and burning bright enough, not go out even in the rain?

Likewise... have you ever seen a stove-top fire? Yes it's fat that's burning, but have you ever noticed how much water and vegetable/protien matter is associated with the mix in the form of food?

If you have, you'll have seen how water in the gravy just made the flames *more* torch-like, of the type that would make torch-marks on a wall like are found around the remains of a combusted body.

Each pound of body fat is disolved in one pound of water, so if you can get a blob of body fat hot enough to ignite, it will release enough heat to evaporate its water in super-hot steam, which will cook and dry the muscle and internal organ tissues until they're desecated enough to burn as well. Damp body protiens will burn if hot enough, and fat burns hot.

The heat to ignite the fat body's fat to burn like a spitting torch came from that body feeling no pain and passing out with a lit cigarette on a chair thickly upholstered with flamable stuffing.

But *none* of it was "spontanious", unless the person is trying to tell Saint Peter that it was a "spontanious" decision to score a 26 of borbon on the way home.
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