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gopher65 t1_it26yzc wrote

That's not a mystery. There is plenty of evidence that those people were smoking cigarettes when they died. They got unlucky and their body's fat caught on fire. Body fat fires are quite hot and fierce, but usually burn themselves out without much damage to the surrounding objects.

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LongStrangeTrips t1_it3imfb wrote

How exactly does your body’s fat catch fire from a cigarette, but yet it doesn’t from direct flame? Also, in what situation would your fat be ever exposed to a flame unless you have a gaping, deep wound?

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gopher65 t1_it3xw11 wrote

People fall asleep with a lit cigarette in their mouth. It falls from their mouth, lands in an extremely unlikely way, and burns through an especially vulnerable spot. Human fat is highly flammable, so it lights on fire.

It's not a hypothesis, it's a confirmed thing that has happened. Thankfully everything has to go wrong before it happens, so it's rare.

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