SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion)

SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion : is a strange phenomena, whereby someone has apparently burst into flames, without an obvious source of ignition or fire accelerant. A unique trait of this phenomenon, is that when a victim is discovered there will normally be little of their body left.

Most of the body will have been reduced to a pile of ash with either a seemingly untouched limb or limbs protruding from the rest of the victim’s charred remains. Over the years there have been many quite shocking images released showing maybe a leg or two lying in situ among a pile of smouldering ash. One notable image which appeared in the ‘Unexplained One’ in the 1980’s showed a single foot left in its slipper next to a walking frame.

It appeared that the victim had apparently just spontaneously combusted, with surrounding objects hardly touched. In order to reduce a human body to a pile of ash, crematoriums use enormous sustained, temperatures of around 2500 degrees Fahrenheit for hours to incinerate a corpse. With temperatures as high as this, it is hard to conceive that, rarely, surrounding objects also get badly burned. Indeed due to the composition of the body and its large circulatory system, comprising mainly of blood and water it would seem an unlikely object to suddenly and inexplicably ignite.