Firefighter/EMT, with roughly a decade of experience. I've seen many (at least dozens) of high speed crashes, and several (half a dozen) fiery wrecks. > 1) He

Firefighter/EMT, with roughly a decade of experience. I've seen many (at least dozens) of high speed crashes, and several (half a dozen) fiery wrecks. > 1) He was going fast, really fast. Yep > 2) He ran a red light (there's always a reason for this: alcohol, bad judgment, being chased by someone, etc.) Yep > 3) Vehicle burst into flames - but when? Likely at the moment of impact. There are a number of possible ignition sources. The most likely is some amount of fuel (this wouldn't need to be much) splashing on something hot enough to ignite it. Once it's burning, it wouldn't take long for it to spread to other fuel sources (including brush and grass underneath the vehicle). > 4) Engine and transmission over 200 feet away from crash site (tree) See point 1. He was going very fast. I've seen similar things happen at similar speeds. > 5) That roof is gone, there's a big hole with flames shooting out - but this car has a panorama sunroof. That glass shattering + high impact collision = hole. Makes sense. > 6) Any arson specialists, chemists - feel free to chime in on the pattern, color, position, spread of the burns at 3:00 of the video. The burn pattern is pretty consistent with most vehicle fires I've seen. The primary fuel source isn't the gas, it's the cushions and other plastic stuff on the interior. The gas likely started the fire, but it's extremely unlikely the tank failed catastrophically, so the amount of gas available to the fire was likely pretty minimal (just what was leaking out of a small puncture or something like that). Note how the paint is burned off the top 3/4 of the driver's door, as if the fire were coming down from the top. That's due to the contents of the car burning, not the fuel underneath the car. > 7) The cockpit is intact - so is the drivers seat - the engine is gone, the car is badly damaged in the front, but if there was no fire, I'd say bad injuries but alive. Fire killed the guy. There's no way to know what his condition was prior to the fire. If he was unbelted, he was dead. Even if he was belted, that's a huge deceleration for his body to deal with. In 'straight line' deceleration like that, the heart keeps moving when the rib cage stops (either after hitting the seat belt or the steering wheel), but the aorta is anchored to the rear of the chest cavity, so it gets torn, so the heart is no longer able to produce any meaningful impact, blood pressure falls almost instantly and some definition of death occurs within seconds. There are plenty of other ways to end up dead (or dying) in a car collision, that's just a moderately common one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_aortic_rupture#Features http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_aortic_rupture#Featur...