The Burning Of Bones

Burn it hot enough and most of the bones will be gone. Teeth are normally the hardest part to burn, but I suppose they could collect those after.

Burning bodies only smell bad if they're not hot enough. With a decent accelerant applied there wouldn't be much smell at all, and what there is would be lifted high in the air. Unless the demons are huge that should be enough.

What are the demons made of? Some things burn better than others. I've heard that fat people provide enough fuel that once they get started they burn hot enough on their own. That's one theory behind supposed 'spontaneous' human combustion, that fabric, acting as a wick for human body fat keeps the fires contained, yet hot enough to completely eradicate the body.

Simply burning a body on a pyre would result in a lot of identifiable bone fragments, like illia from the pelvis, bits of femur, teeth (though they might shatter from the heat). You can see all that in ancient cremations-they didn't have the technology we have today. Also, where there is pyre cremation, there is often a tradition of breaking up the remaining bone, completing the process, if you will.

You would need something that would increase the temperature of the fire to over 1000 c.

People used to regularly burn bones in fireplaces. Adding bone ashes to the wood ashes helps when making soap. I don't think you need 1400 to 1800 degrees for regular burning. That's for crematoriums which have different regulations than your characters.

What kind of world is this taking place in? Modern? Medieval? Burning bodies makes a lot of smoke, takes time, and leaves a big scar on the ground. Not to mention cutting down someone's trees (and green wood adds to the smoke). If your world is urban fantasy, I'd be wondering why all the burning was going on. If pre-industrial, not so much.

Doh! Missed your parentheses!

There are lots of accelerants. The most easily obtainable might be gasoline. It's not TOO dangerous to your characters if they're moderately careful with it.

Even if you're out in the wilderness, maybe especially so, fire is hard to conceal. There are lots of fire watch towers looking for that very thing. Unless the Forest Service is in on the monsters.

If your characters are out in the back of beyond how likely is it for people to stumble across odd bodies as compared to private timber companies and the Forest Service jumping in to stop (as far as they know) incipient forest fires?

Alex, there was a similar thread about burning bodies - though in a medieval setting.

People offered several links with good information. One - coating the body with ghee or a similar substance helps the body burn faster/better.

Anyway, you might want to check out the links mentioned in the thread. Funeral Pyres

Personally, if I was getting rid of a body in the wilderness, I'd find the largest predator type available and bait the body with twenty or so pounds of bait. Best would be bear bait in grizzly territory. That should take care of your problem. Fires are noticeable, especially in the volume you're going to need to get rid of a body.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

I lived in rural India for a couple of years and there pyre cremations are (or were then) routine. Outside most decent-sized villages there was a site with six steel girders set vertically with horizontal girders set a couple of feet above the ground linking pairs of vertical girders. Long branches were stacked into this structure and the body lain on top. The villagers didn't use petrol or other accelerant except to start the fire and the fire would burn for most of the day without that much smoke. The next morning there would be several reasonable sized bone fragments and the eldest son had to rake through the ashes to find the skull and smash it.

The problem was when the family couldn't afford enough wood (even brushwood has a price) and the body was just lightly singed. Then it would smell...

Depending on the location, your characters could perhaps use the cover of loggers burning off brushwood and trimmings from felled trees to explain the fires.

Your line

Would gasoline be hot enough though?

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doesn't make a lot of sense I'm afraid. Simply dousing a body in any accelerant and setting fire to it would not dispose of the body (unless perhaps the accelerant had soaked into several thick layers of clothing and the body had a lot of subcutaneous fat). Mostly what would happen is that the accelerant would burn off pretty quickly leaving the body singed and smoking. The more flammable the accelerant is the quicker it would burn off, so the less likely it would be to start combustion within the body. To get the body to start combusting you need to raise its temperature considerably, e.g. by having a fire burn beneath it for some considerable time. Hence the pyre.

An analogy: try starting a campfire by taking a large log and dousing it in petrol then setting it on fire. Now try starting a fire with paper, twigs, small branches etc, with the same large log lying on the top of the big stack of smaller wood.

If time isn't off the essence and they have access to industrial quantities of acid then why not make vats of acid and leave them in there? It'd take a few days but there wouldn't be much left. If the vat was big enough you could dispose of several bodies that way before you had to drain it out into a nearby river (industrial pollution- happens all the time) and start again.

-alex- said:

Thanks again for the replies.

I've had another thought. The corpses doused with some kind of acid, then set on fire...?

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Most powerful acids are water-based until you get up to practically neat, and none are combustible, so this strikes me as counter productive.
How about thermite blocks to start the process off with a large pile of wood-trimmings for the main fire.

Or pack them in quicklime and then burn them. The quicklime would desiccate the corpse pretty effectively, meaning it would burn much easier and with less smoke.

-alex- said:

Thermite would definitely work, but seems too bright when burning. I’ve read you can’t be anywhere near it without wearing a welding mask. Not sure that’s something each character would carry around with them.

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So the thermite is buried under a big pile of timber trimmings when your characters set it off, and they turn their backs on it.

-alex- said:

Thermite would definitely work, but seems too bright when burning. I’ve read you can’t be anywhere near it without wearing a welding mask. Not sure that’s something each character would carry around with them.

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Sure you can, but you won't want to. It's bright as can be and hurts your eyes to look at it. If you stare into the heart of a thermite fire for an extended period there is a chance for some damage to your eyes. But it's not immediate or like something out of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP_xfJ_2JUI

DON'T LOOK AT IT MARION! DON'T LOOK AT IT!

Just kidding. They use magnesium in fireworks for a nice bright gleam. You could conceivably get some magnesium chips and add that to the body. Once they got going they would burn holes right through that corpse as they burned themselves out. The problem is - the rest of the corpse would still be ooey gooey and full of moisture that has to be boiled out before it will burn. anguswalker made a great point about trying to light a big log on fire with some gasoline - it doesn't work very well.

In a meeting of the scooby gang, Mr Giles suggests, "Hey Xander, why don't you get a night shift job at the crematorium?"

No accelerants or chemicals that will be traced or need to be purchased.

How many bodies?

-alex- said:

GeorgeK,
Ha. A night shift at a crematorium would solve it all, lol.

However, it wouldn’t work for my story. My hunters are nomadic; they move around the US (sleeping in off-road motels/camping out in their trucks/vans), hunting shifters, is pretty much their life. So, they’d never be able to hold down a nightshift job. Also, they’re out in the wilderness, mostly forests/mountains, no crematoriums out there.

As for body count, well, I’d say they kill a couple of shifters a week, maybe less if it takes longer to track them.

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They could have friends who have jobs.
Another thing if they are in wilderness, is just let the coyotes and vultures deal with it. They'll strip the bones in a couple days depending on weather and then your guys could maybe only pick up things that are distictive like skull, long bones and pelvis, put those in a sack and once a month or two go talk to Xander and slip him a bribe o choice. ('m thinking that Xander likes a half dozen lottery scratch offs and a bottle of Maker's Mark) The little bones will scatter and the ribs will be mistaken as deer ribs to the average person (since the average person has never seen human ribs. ) Of course that assumes that your shifters' ribs even look human. Aslo if they're only transporting bones, you could easily fit 12-20 disjointed skeltons jumbled into one coffin sized crate. So that would be every 6-10 weeks. That's believeable that it might take the owner a few years to realize the extra burns in either gas or electric.

Also Xander might look in the box one day and find a bunch of funky skulls that he tries to sell.

You could have a sugeon get dragged out by his brother in law on a hunting trip finally find some remains and realize that something is up

If they had a pack of dogs (and why not?) they'd go through that much meat in a week no problem. Then just a few well-gnawed bones to bury...