The Mysterious Fire Incident (神秘的火焰)

My friend sent me this very interesting story:

“This morning I read newspaper concerning there is a house in my town which is very haunted, it has mysterious fire meaning that the items in house will catch fire by itself automatically like curtain, windows, doors and chairs etc. When fire brigade came to put out the fire; the more they put the bigger the fire it is. In addition firemen saw a dark shadow and they shouted at it and it subsequently disappeared inside the wall.

The owner of the haunted house is an Indian man he is not a master but he learnt some black magic spell before. According to what he has said recently someone anger him, so he cast black magic spell on the person but the person retaliated by sending back the spell to him so both fought using black magic spells. Finally this Indian man lost and from that day onwards he started to suffer from this mystery fire problem. The State assemblyman also went to the place at night at see the place caught fire…”

So I was asked to comment if ghosts can start a fire…

My point of view is that there are many reasons why fire can start:

In Feng Shui fire incidents can be started when the flying stars combined into fire element and that the person has stagnant air such as that of in an enclosed space; then there are high percentages that fire incident will occur. In this case, one only needs to put a pot of soil in the room and a bowl of water. This shall prevent forthcoming fire.

Another more scientific explanation is the presence of methane gas emitted from underground. When the flashing point of methane is achieved, then fire shall start automatically. Places such as formerly swamp area, rubbish reclaim area or pig barns would have large quantity of methane gas. When this gas slowly leaked upwards and met with heat, it will burn automatically.

When I was studying in Taiping, I like to fish for Tilapia fish at Aulong tin mine lakes nearby. There were many pig barns and the animal manure was being discharged through drains. Every time when I walked by the drains behind pig barns, I can see gas bubbles emitted from the drain water. At times when I felt playful, I would light a piece of match and throw towards the bubble. Almost instantly a bluish flame can be seen floating in the air. It was quite amazing now think of it.

If we go back to the mysterious fire incident, I doubt that any spirits can start a fire these days although spirits indeed can make our house hold electrical appliances to be short circuited.