The Warring States of NPF - So, about that Zombie Apocalypse...

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Krylo (Post 970813)

Actually, fat is one of the longest and best burning fuels around. Full of oils and everything else.

"A more economical and reasonable theory of how human bodies burn in rooms without having the entire room engulfed in flames is the idea of the wick effect. The ignition point of human fat is low and to get the fire going would require an external source. Once ignited, however, a "wick effect" from the body's fat would burn hot enough in certain places to destroy even bones. To prove that a human being might burn like a candle, Dr. John de Haan of the California Criminalistic Institute wrapped a dead pig in a blanket, poured a small amount of gasoline on the blanket, and ignited it. Even the bones were destroyed after five hours of continuous burning. The fat content of a pig is very similar to the fat content of a human being."

http://www.skepdic.com/shc.html Sourced.

For the record, it takes a temperature of about 482 Fahrenheit to burn fat. A mere 31 degrees higher than that required to burn paper.

And yes, fire probably wouldn't kill zombies without long term exposure, but it would be likely to damage muscle tissue enough to reduce them to heaps of harmless undead flesh over time. Which is why you wouldn't use it to repel a horde right next to you, but you might drop a few incendiary grenades into the horde clawing at the stone walls of your safe haven.

I was more referring to the fact your average zombie is A) soaked in blood/blood like ooze, B) decayed (or decaying) usually as putrefaction which breaks stuff down into liquids and C) has prolly had a good bit eaten off him.

There's also the fact it depends on how your zombie apocalypse spreads. If it's a virus, a barely unalive zombie that drags itself into drinking water is a massive thread. Or if it doesn't require a cut or wound to enter your body (air transmissible) those heaps of undead flesh could still be real deadly from a wind.

And in an urban environment a flaming zombie sets everything on fire, including your potential safehouses (which in the wild, if made of wood, are also susceptible to burning down).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odjn (Post 971386)

B) decayed (or decaying) usually as putrefaction which breaks stuff down into liquids

That was the burning temperature for liquid fat... soooo... yeah.

Quote:

There's also the fact it depends on how your zombie apocalypse spreads. If it's a virus, a barely unalive zombie that drags itself into drinking water is a massive thread. Or if it doesn't require a cut or wound to enter your body (air transmissible) those heaps of undead flesh could still be real deadly from a wind.

And yet less deadly than fully mobile zombies trying to claw their way in.

Quote:

And in an urban environment a flaming zombie sets everything on fire, including your potential safehouses (which in the wild, if made of wood, are also susceptible to burning down).

Well yes. Which is why you would, ideally, not be in a safehouse made of wood. You'd want concrete.

Fire isn't the only reason for this either. It's a lot easier for an undead horde beating/scratching on something for days on end to chip away and wear at wood than it is to do the same to a concrete or stone building.

But if, for some reason, wood is what your shelter is made of--no you wouldn't want to use fire.

Otherwise the whole 'everything lights up' is actually advantageous, as the more which is lit up, the more zombies burn.

Another issue is the normal firefighting services are down. In a worst case, the sprinklers don't even work anymore. Are you willing to set an uncontrolled blaze? You've destroyed any shelter for a good distance. And if your zombie attack is still in the stages where there are authories who CAN put out fires, you'll prolly go in for arson and manslaughter. After burning it, a zombie corpse looks like a normal person one. A decapitated zombie will at least show to the ME that you didn't kill him. That'd be a pretty cool episode of CSI, actually... they have to get a guy off when forensics proves that the man died before he was shot repeatedly in the head after grappling with the suspect.