Now that the home heating season is upon us, it seems like a good time to consider a few practical tips which I, as a professional journalist, have culled in order to avoid writing anything whatsoever about Ryan Seacrest and New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
So, to enjoy a safe, comfortable winter, you should:
1) Make sure your home is well insulated;
2) Purchase your home heating fuel from a reputable dealer, and;
3) Refrain from bursting into flames. 
Perhaps you think that last item may be a tad obvious, but before you totally reject the notion of unwilling premature cremation, you should know that this condition – called ” spontaneous human combustion ” – is an actual true fact that has even been reported in our very own city.
As evidence, I submit ”Unexplained Mysteries of the 20th Century.” This is an important scientific text by Brits Janet and Colin Bord who should win several paranormal Pulitzer prizes for their breakthrough work in the neglected field of ”spontaneous human combustion,” not to mention the equally neglected fields of ”organic matter falling from the sky” and ”phone calls from the long dead.”
Sadly, I do not own this book, but former Manchester Police Sgt. Thomas Steinmetz – who, by the way, has a legal permit to carry a gun – does own a copy, and sure enough, right there on page 64 is the extremely unexplained mystery regarding the fiery demise of Manchester’s own Mrs. Ellen K. Coutres.
I promise I am not making this up.
According to this unimpeachable book – it even has an index! – officials who went to the Coutres home back in 1949 said, in a warm and touching display of sympathy, ”The woman must have been a human torch!”
Personally, I imagine spontaneous human combustion is a lot like heart burn only more intense. In any case, even though the circumstances of her death have baffled law enforcement officials for 65 years, I thought I knew what caused her to go to blazes. I figured she had a wood stove.
I have had several personal friends (and one personal father) who owned wood stoves and from what I’ve gathered, it is an immutable law of wood stove ownership that homes so equipped must maintain a constant temperature rivalling that of a small but still-functioning sun.
An unfortunate result of this law is that household pets and small children occasionally burst into flames without warning. I assumed this is what happened to poor Mrs. Coutres, but my wood stove theory went up in smoke – sorry – when I foolishly decided to conduct further research.
See, Mrs. Coutres owned a men’s furnishing store at 34 Lake Ave., right next to the Atlantic Fish Market and just across the street from an old Red Arrow location. On the day in question – Dec. 17, 1949 – everything was proceeding normally until she decided to do her impression of the Hindenburg. Here’s more factual information from the front page of the Manchester Evening Leader:
”Mrs. Ellen (King) Coutres, 53, was found burned to death in the rear of a store she operated at 34 Lake Ave. today. The Manchester woman apparently was enveloped in flames from head to toe when her clothing caught fire in some undetermined manner.
”Deputy Fire Chief Ephraim Gendron said that department officials had been unable to determine how the tragedy occurred. There was no fire in the small pot-type stove in the room, and beyond the women’s clothing and body, there was practically no fire damage.”
Clearly, someone should have notified investigative actor Robert (”Smoke”) Stack and the crack staff of TV’s ”Unsolved Mysteries” – even though the show itself would not go on the air for 60 years – because we’re talking classic symptoms of spontaneous human combustion here.
”It’s almost like a demonic visitation in that somebody, for no apparent reason, can suddenly burst into flames and in seconds be reduced to a pile of greasy ashes,” said Bob Rickard, co-editor of a London-based magazine called ”Fortean Times” that studies ”unusual phenomena.”
According to another book by English authors Jenny Randles and Peter Hough – somebody in Parliament must be giving large government grants to study this stuff – you are most likely to combust if you are a plump, elderly woman who lives alone and tends to imbibe on special occasions, such as lunch or sunsets or when ”Wheel of Fortune” comes on.
And why would someone suddenly ignite as quick as a flick of your Bic? Most theories revolve around a form of internal, rather than external, heat. Here are three of my favorites:
* Theory One is called ”kundalini.” This is when the body’s own electricity is concentrated into the spinal column, which then turns into a Roman candle.
* Theory Two – you might want to put down that bagel for a second – is that your intestines, which contain methane gas, could suddenly produce phosphine, which ignites on contact with air (and how that happens I’ll leave to your own fertile imagination).
* Theory Three is the sub-atomic theory, in which your body is constantly bombarded by tiny particles until one of them strikes you in a very special place – kind of like a flammable G-spot – and WHOOOM! You’re toast. As it were. 
Depending upon whose statistics you believe, there are as many as 300 or as few as 100 cases of spontaneous human combustion on record. As for me, unless you count an inflamed appendix or the time I ordered the ”911 Pasta from Hell” at Shorty’s, I have only had one small brush with spontaneous human combustion.
It was during an eighth grade dance in 1967. The DJ was playing ”Michelle” by the Beatles when a sultry classmate named Claire Lauzon – who spoke French – started whispering the French parts of the song, in genuine French, directly into my right ear which, at the time, was located just inches from my 13-year-old brain.
Having survived that volcanic moment by merely smoldering, it would seem that I have developed an immunity to spontaneous human combustion. Still, I’m not taking any chances. My recently fulfilled Christmas list included flame-retardant pajamas and a holster-sized fire extinguisher.
Oh yes, and ear muffs.
Just in case I ever get to dance with Claire again.
John Clayton is Executive Director of the Manchester Historic Association. You can reach him with your historical (or existential) questions at jclayton@manchesterhistoric.org.
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