Obese body starts fire at funeral home

An "overly obese" body started a freak accident fire last week at the Hillside Chapel Crematory in Cincinnati. Owner Don Catchen said:

"My operator was in the process of cremating remains and (the body) was overly obese and apparently it got a little hotter than the unit is supposed to get. One of the cremation containers that we had close got caught on fire and that's what burnt."

The fat in the body burned at a higher temperature than usual, and the flames spread to nearby containers and the rest of the room.

It took two hours to put out the fire. Luckily, not much damage was done to the building:

"The containers that we use -- that we have to place the remains in to cremate them -- that's the only thing that's burnt."

The dangers of cremating obese bodies aren't that well-known. Caleb Wilde, a licensed professional who runs the blog Confessions of a Funeral Director, says:

"As you may realize, when a morbidly obese person is cremated, there's a danger of what can only be called (in layman's terms) a 'grease fire.'"

Read more at WCPO.


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