re: Morbid Question. Sorry: In a fire, do most die of smoke or from the fire itself?

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This is wrong. Yes, the body's breathing impulses are based on CO2 levels in the blood, but oxygen deficiency is what kills. It is not excess CO2. Death from asphyxiation by an inert gas (nitrogen, argon, etc) is due to insufficient oxygen and not excess CO2.

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You missed the point.

I didn't say that you didn't need oxygen to survive; its that a lack of oxygen in the air isn't what kills you in a fire scenario.

You can tolerate up to half of normal atmospheric levels of oxygen before getting life threatening effects. If you are experiencing that level of anoxic environment, you are probably so close to an incredibly hot fire that you have literally already been roasted to death. So thats not a factor.

What is:

-Being downwind of a major fire, with major levels of CO, which inhibits your body's ability to transport oxygen.

-Hot fumes which damage your mucousal linings inhibiting your body's ability to transport oxygen

-Breathing in soot particles which line your lungs, and throat, irriating your linings, which inhibit your body's ability to transport oxygen

Seeing a trend here?

I didn't say that you didn't need oxygen.

I was directly responding to the OP which mused that the fire could take away all of the oxygen. Was just explaining why that wasn't a factor here.

You die from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, but its not because of a lack of oxygen typically. Its that your ability to transfer and use that oxygen is so fricked up its incompatible to live. And that is the big and important difference.




Long term scuba diving (and submarines and space vessels) exploit on our relatively low oxygen needs compared to how frequently we breathe. They filter out the toxic CO2, and only occasionally refresh oxygen levels.

Doesn't mean you want the touch the efficacy of the transport systems though.

Dead is dead, shouldn't really matter