So, about that Zombie Apocalypse...

[Viridis]

The Left 4 Dead zombies climb freakishly fast to get at you, for one.

[krogothwolf]

They climb in Left 4 Dead quiet easily, ladders, walls, even air sometimes. Even if they can't climb, enough of them clawing at a tree would topple it eventually.

[Hanuman]

Originally Posted by Masaki-kun

As much as it PAINS me to say this, that doesn't apply to zombies. Some zombie types require such specific kill methods or simply take too long to burn out, due to a lack of pain sense and an inability to recognize the dangers of being aflame. Usually, a burning enemy is distracted from killing you because it IS ON FUCKING FIRE. It may give over to panic or methodically attempt to extinguish itself, but its priorities change. Burning zombies may, depending on type and fire intensity, continue attacking you while on fire. Which means without a long-range incendiary weapon or a barricade, you've just upgraded the already dangerous Grappling with a Zombie to Grappling with a Zombie that is also on Fire because you Didn't Get Far enough Away when you Lit It.

Fire? This looks like a job for my input!

Well a live target is injured and dead long before a zombie falls down for a few reasons:
1) A corpse is already colder than the living, which means it's IBT and EBT are both room temperature, and the reason it's so easy to burn the living is because they are way above room temperature already.
2) Limited nerve input, seems with zombie tales they have outgoing nerve input but no incoming, so if the fire doesn't heat the brain it's basically just BBQing a walking steak.
3) Doesn't Breathe Maybe? I really doubt smoke kills zombies, or even slows them down past the visual.

On the other hand, fire is super dangerous so really there are a few factors you have to consider:
If you give a zombie a 3rd degree burn, which is that the skin is completely gone (this takes a very high temperature for at least a few seconds) you can start to actually damage the muscle. Being "on fire" is usually thought of as the scenario to cause a 3rd degree.

Now the problems are that all this heat is going to go up, not much to the brain, not much to the legs because of the way fire works.

BUT, with that much fire going around a person mostly coming from the torso as that's where the most flammable material is, this is going to create a large wall of fire for the zombie's head to rest in, which is extremely loud and extremely bright, so you should be able to take away at least half of its vision and almost all it's hearing straight away.

After about 30 seconds (guess) it will turn it's torso and arms into the consistency of grilled chicken causing the zombie to collapse.

Since the hip line is centered right over the pants, if the pants go the hips are grilled, and if the muscles are cooked the hips freeze up and the zombies simply CANNOT walk (try laying on the floor and only use the muscles in your legs to try and get around), since the arms are a part of the torso those are gone too so it can't crawl either.

Disabled zombie.

[Magic_Marker]

Originally Posted by Lev

SCIENCE FACTORY

I would pay to see this on the big screen.

[Doc ock rokc]

Yeah I have a phobia of zombies (Kinemortophobia?)...so rather then live in what I would consider my personal hell I would kill my self in such a way i cant come back...yeah...This is depressing

[Krylo]

I think the real advantage of fires against zombies would be that zombie's stay in clusters most of the time, don't feel pain, and don't feel fear. This means that if you set a few alight in a group, you should see the fire spread relatively quickly between them as none of them would be smart enough to avoid it.

[Odjn]

Originally Posted by Krylo

I think the real advantage of fires against zombies would be that zombie's stay in clusters most of the time, don't feel pain, and don't feel fear. This means that if you set a few alight in a group, you should see the fire spread relatively quickly between them as none of them would be smart enough to avoid it.

Except fire generally doesn't destroy a human body completely but very badly damage it and boil away liquids etc etc. 's why you see so many charred remains, as we're too soggy to burn properly. So in actuality you might get lucky and have a direct hit with an incendiary grenade of some sort which annihilates the brain instanteous via heat but clothing burns a lot more than flesh and it's soaked in blood most likely, so immolation on contact would be pretty rare.

[Krylo]

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.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Originally Posted by Doc ock rokc

Yeah I have a phobia of zombies (Kinemortophobia?)...so rather then live in what I would consider my personal hell I would kill my self in such a way i cant come back...yeah...This is depressing

I wouldn't kill myself immediatly in such a situation, but the idea of being torn apart and eaten scares the hell out of me so I would always have one spare bullet if I wore came to worse.

[Sithdarth]

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.

Its quite scary how flammable people actually are though it is counter intuitive in that a low temperature slow burn will destroy a lot more of a body than a high temperature fast burn. We are mostly carbon by mass, well there is more oxygen but that's mostly tied up in water, with a few other bits and pieces thrown in so its not terribly surprising we can support a fire.