All About Cremations

Many people choose relatively inexpensive cremation of their dead body or a loved one over the high expense of a standard funeral…cremation is done at a temperature that ranges between 1400 to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit…rather hot…the chamber is pre-heated (how thoughtful of them, we wouldn’t want our dead bodies to get too cold)…they are then placed in the chamber through a door which does not allow the heat built up to escape…or any stubborn customers…but what this heat does is reduce the body to its most basic elements such as fragments of dried bones…during incineration of the body, the body is exposed to a wall of flames that is produced by a furnace that is run by oils, natural gas, and other flammables…the corpse is placed in a casket or container (preferably prepared from a combustible material), as the process goes along, the container burns up…then, the intense heat dries out the body, burns hair and skin, chars the muscles, vaporizes the soft tissues, and causes calcification of the bones so powerful that they eventually crumble…any gases accumulated during the process are discharged through an exhaust system…usually, bodies are burned one at a time…some crematories have what is called a secondary burner to help burn the body completely…if not, the cremation technician may have to crush the partially cremated remains…the corpse is reduced to tiny skeletal remains and bone fragments, which are collected and then set aside to ‘rest’…that is cool down…it’s not unusual for small bits of one body to be mixed it with another cremation…the bone fragments are then ground down to a sand like consistency…the average body will be reduced to about 5-7 pounds of what is called cremains…these cremains will be a whitish color…even some metal objects like screws, nails, hinges, and other parts of the container or casket may be collected…also, one may find pieces of dental work, screws inserted during a surgery, implants and other things…although these items are removed with magnets or forceps during manual inspection before the ashes are turned over to whoever is collecting them…