Open Air Cremation

In the "West" people are usually cremated in a furnace. Throughout many parts of the world and most of history, cremation happens on a pyre. I'm a furnace man myself but it would be nice to have the choice to burn on wood in the open air.

Describing exactly what happens on a cremation pyre is difficult because each pyre is different. Perhaps different fuel, perhaps a different build, perhaps different weather conditions. In experiments the centre of a well designed pyre fanned by the prevailing wind reached a temperature of 1800 degrees F within one hour. Phew! If you are in middle of that you will really BURN. But if the pyre does not burn evenly you may slip into a cooler part of the fire and not burn so well. In India the lungs or some other part of the body may be left un-burnt if there is not enough fuel.

Its not a furnace

A pyre is very different to a furnace. During a crematorium cremation, the enveloping heat reflected from the walls of the oven leads to the intensive destruction of your flesh and internal organs. If you are burned in the open, the distribution of heat varies and consequently so does the depth of destruction of your body, besides which much heat is lost by radiation into the atmosphere.

Lighting Up

Lets say that they cover you in petrol. Once you have been lit, the first thing that burns off is the extraneous petrol, which causes a strong heating up of the your body.

Hot Fashion

Because your clothes act like a wick, the fire spreads to them, and they burn away more or less quickly depending on the fabric. If you are dressed in nylon or lycra an acrid smell will come off you, if you are burning in cotton the smell is more woody. I'm going to burn in my nothing but my white sports sox.

Bursting an the seams

The flames will gradually carbonize you. Steam will form in your subcutaneous tissue, the pressure inside your body will rise dramatically, and you will burst open in many places. Your skull and stomach will explode from the same effect. The heat will make protein in the cells of your muscles congeal, and so they will contract. This will lead to contortions of your arms or the lifting up and contracting of your upper body and legs.

The shrinking man or woman

The heat causes your body fat to melt and the fatty acids released to run out of the gashes in your skin. Because of the major loss of water and fat, the your carbonated torso shrinks a lot. A light snow of human ash begins to fall. Onlookers may catch fleeting glimpses of your charred ribcage dripping with melting flesh in the core of fire. As the burning continues, your soft tissue is totally consumed.

What's left of you

For men, it is the chest takes the longest to burn, and for women, it is the pelvic and womb area. The wood of your pyre is reduced to a few pounds of ashy residue, the majority of it burning to gas and ash which is carried off on the wind. After the wood ash mound has cooled, your cremated bones can be collected. All that remains of you in the end is fragile, calcified bones that can easily disintegrate even without attempts to crush them.

Putting out the fire to collect your ashes

Open air or in the cremator? For the pyre.....

Psychologically burning on a pyre may be better for your friends and relatives. The Rocky Mountain Shambhala Centre at Red Feather Lakes has an open air crematorium in a mountain clearing. Members devote an entire day to the ceremony, which includes telling stories to celebrate the loved one and a funeral service. Then the body, clothed in ceremonial scarves, is placed on a grate and cremated by fire made from aspen and ponderosa trees. The process takes four to six hours, and during those hours members stay close to the body. A member of the centre says. "It's a very powerful process that gives people full comprehension of a person's death. They feel the grief, and (the cremation) gives them a chance to let go."
It feels for many people closer to nature to burn in the open air and not in the sterile environment of the modern crematorium.

Party Party Party

Lots of people I talk to - mostly online - think the great thing about an open air cremation is that their mates can party around them as they burn. No boring grim service. No boring suits and dresses. Have a themed party with lots for drink. And yes people can smoke - I always find "no smoking" bans at crematoria a bit ironic.

Open air or in the cremator? For the cremator....

Cremators are faster; you may be only last 75 minutes in a modern oven. On a pyre it could take between 3 and 6 hours to reduce you to ashes.
A cremator will leave less behind; 4 - 8 pounds of ashes as opposed to 10+ pounds from a pyre.
Cremators are more environmentally friendly. A two-chamber cremator produces 60% less pollution than a pyre. The first chamber cremates you and the second gets rids of the smell and smoke from your dissolving body. A cremator uses less fuel to incinerate you - because it is insulated and does not loose heat to the atmosphere.
Visit my cremation process page to find out more about cremation in a furnace or my cremation images for pictures of a body being consumed in an incinerator.

A personal view

Myself I'd rather go into a furnace. English weather is too unpredictable to have a party round the pyre. I think the impersonal feeling of of modern cremations could be overcome if friends and relatives could watch the cremation - if they desired through windows it the cremator. Crematorium chapels could be provided with bars and sound systems. My friends could drink and dance and maybe wander over to watch me burning.

A controversial opinion? Yes, but I'm like to know your views. Mail me or leave a message on my guestbook

Comments/Feedback?

Click here to give me feedback on this page. If you have witnessed an open air cremation, I'd like to hear your experiences please mail me.

Info. Sources

I have picked up lots of little pieces of information from places like yahoo groups. I have only listed below the main sources.

Was Hitler's Body/corpse Ever Found? Although about Hitler's fate, contains lots of fascinating information on what happens to a body when it is burned outside.
"The city of smoke and ashes". Moving description of cremation by the Ganges. This page no longer appears to be on the web, but mail me for a copy of the text.
Experimental cremation of prehistoric type Technical discussion from a university archeologist. Appears to be about cremation under ideal conditions. Did you know that a suitably butchered sheep burns like you or me?
"Most cremations are a health hazard" Thai Government paper explaining the environmental impact of open air cremation. This page no longer appears to be on the web, but mail me for a copy of the text.