# Highest temperature someone could survive long enough to feel pain



## NerdyCavegirl (Dec 5, 2015)

And I don't mean like a small heat source burning a small area, I mean something like falling in lava or being fully set ablaze. I read somewhere that the flames in the Twin Towers at 2000 degrees, not sure what unit, took 15 seconds to kill. Also not sure if anything else about that statement is accurate, but I do know that'd be long enough to be in agony. Lava at the same temperature, at least from what I gathered from my thread on the topic, would kill much faster. But would someone feel it? How about molten steel, 1000 degrees hotter? How hot would fire have to be to vaporize someone painlessly?


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## Butterfly (Dec 5, 2015)

I  saw a documentary on Pompeii where archaeologists found people who had taken shelter in docks warehouses in Herculaneam when the pyroclastic flow hit. (Secrets of the dead - i think). The heat caused their brains and heads to explode, instant death. Wikipedia says Pyroclastic flows can reach 1000 oC or 1830 oF.


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## WhiteCrow (Dec 11, 2015)

My parents' neighbor worked at an old steel plant. He has a few stories of people getting burnt by molten steel in accidents. From what I gather the pain doesn't hang around for 50 hours but is very quick as the nerves simply don't last. What kills, depending on how badly the person is hit, is the burns themselves and/or shock. 

As it is - lava kills. Not a single person has survived falling in lava. And given that it is hot enough to literally burn [or "melt"] everything including bone [it doesn't literally melt, it'll burn through bone hence why the handful of discovered volcano "villages" the bones are oftentimes charred & pitted] even if you pulled someone out they wouldn't last for very long. The agony - or more the shock - itself would probably kill them before you could drag them out. 


Being set ablaze - people have survived and I am not talking of stunt devils where something has gone wrong. There's a number of cases of people being doused in gas and set ablaze. They survive. Oftentimes horribly scarred, suffering horrific complications afterwards - but they are alive. 


It takes a while to loud - fire survival rates as per actual investigations. Includes temps & some times. 
Login - Fire Engineering


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## DanJames (Dec 11, 2015)

Weirdly, I was reading today something about Home Alone on Cracked.com about the fire traps he sets in the movie, such as the blow torch, which burns at 3,000 degrees fahrenheit. Joe Pesci stands under it for 7 seconds screaming in pain, but in real life 7 seconds would be enough to destroy everything down to the bone, which would be left necrotic; he'd require a bone transplant on the skull.

As well as that, temperatures of 751 degrees fahrenheit would be require to make the door knob glow that orange/yellow colour. Holding it for as long as Pesci did would've set his hand ablaze completely.

I know nothing of the science, but from little things I've read on and offline, I'd say anything above 1,000 degrees fahrenheit would be too hot to register pain. I'd assume nerve ending would fry completely in a matter of seconds and best case scenario for that person would be they'd go into a seizure and not come out of it.


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## Brithel (Dec 13, 2015)

I'm pretty sure falling into lava would almost instantly evapourate the water in your body, which would probably make you explode. Here is a story that shows the dangers of high temperatures: Man Dies Trying to Rescue Dog from Hot Spring : snopes.com Bear in mind that that was only ~200Â° (Unspecified if F or C, though I assume C), lava is significantly hotter (700-1200Â°C).


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