Fire — nature’s greatest weapon.
While Humans were evolving, in their primitive stage where the human brain was exploring and trying to contemplate on how to use the environment in which he/she is living; there came a stage where we discovered ‘accidentally’ one of the nature’s greatest asset — FIRE.
Around 1.7 to 2 million years ago, we found traced and evidences of fire being “controlled” or “tamed” for the first time. Evidences of fire which was created by using ashes on woods for friction to generate heat was found almost a million year ago. Since then humans have found innovative uses to tame this beast. But as it goes, something that is wild cannot be tamed or kept in the cage for too long, it will have its consequences; after all what we aim to tame is nature’s greatest force which has a destructive as well as generative power.
Fire is an exothermic oxidation reaction between a fuel and an oxidizer (most commonly it is oxygen) that generates sufficient heat to be self sustaining and yields readily detectable heat, along with light.
Fire exists in two forms, one is the flame and other is smoulder. Flame is the visibile product of the fuel in gaseous state while smoldering fire is oxidation of “solid-gas” reaction that occurs on the surface of the fuel. Smoldering fire is best seen in porous solid materials, particularly “charcoal”.
The flame assumes the tip because hot air rises up while cooling rapidly which intermix reactions of the surrounding atmospheric contents leading to widening at the sides with cooling effect and heat rising at the tip.
This gives us light and heat which is utilized to carry out multiple day to day activity which either propagate the individual ahead from place to place in the form of combustion engine in cars of to cook food for sustenance. But this if wild beast goes untamed and can wreck havoc on the people around which we refer to as “burn injuries”.
Burn injuries need to be assessed very carefully. These injuries can be ranging from simple scald to a completely charred body. A charred body is one in which the body is burnt 100% deep to the bones, sometimes even exposing them due to fractures. Bones being solid and as physics state, solids expand on heating, the increase in temperature of the bone along with “dehydration” the bone expands leading to cracking and shriveling. This often leads to “fracture” of the bone and exposes the bone to the outside environment. But if the bone is exposed continuously to fire, the charring oxides and fades away leaving a “clean” bone. This can give a false impression as if it was burnt or not.
Various materials have various energy levels with each material having different thresholds and burning points and flame temperatures; example — wood has a flame temperature of 1027 degree Celsius where as animal fat has 800–900 degree Celsius.
But the deceased brought for examination might be burnt depending upon the environmental factors like — components in the room, height of the room, ventilation of the room, type of the fuel, source of the fire, weight and fat distribution of the individual, its range from the source, etc. Keeping these things in mind, the evaluation of the person becomes easy and thus the injuries present can be well described or the situation can be well analysed and the conclusions drawn from the scenarios can be helpful in guiding of the case. One such conflict can arise when the body found is near a crematorium. The question being “was the body burnt in the crematorium?” or “was the body thrown there to misguide the investigation and was burnt somewhere else?” Then to distinguish these questions, the knowledge of spread of fire and its compactness can be helpful if one has basic idea about the pentagon of explosion (although this pentagon is more useful in the explosive burns cases, the body is kept in a compact place, it might be useful).
If a human is trapped in a room and someone opens even a slightest of the ventilation system while the room is in flames, the fire escalates more rapidly consuming more items in its areas thus increasing the burn radius and elements along with the percentage of burns in the person trapped. This can be seen in a case of “crematorium on wheels” case where a couple went for camping countryside in their mini van; which caught fire and due to suffocation the man cracked the window with a stone for the smoke to escape, only to realize that the woman died de to increase in the area of fire and height of fire while him sustaining injuries which were serious. Human tissues and fat are excellent source of fuel as they burn at around 800 degrees. A combination of fuel, air and heat with or without confinement leads to burns easily.
However useful this force may be, the beast will always show its consequences and harm anyone who comes in its way.
Contact us — @_doc.of.the.dead_
