Apologies for the grim and gross question, but I’m curious!
I was cooking some pasta earlier when I turned off the heat and drained the water off in the sink. As I turn back, I see a bug crawling on the cupboard above the range for a moment and then fall all the way onto the stovetop. It wriggled helplessly on its back for a few moments and then went completely still, seemingly dead within five seconds.
I know that living things can be consumed by fire and burn to a crisp, and I also know that serious burns can have long-term dangers due to things like nerves/muscles being damaged and a weakening of the immune system. But when actual fire isn’t involved and death still happens quickly, what’s happening to the body that can cause a quick death due to a burn?
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In a situation like what you are describing, where there is enough heat to render you dead within a few seconds, there are a few things that will be causing this. First is a process called denaturing, whereby the heat causes the proteins in your cells change shape, causing them to lose their ability to function. Rapid and widespread denaturing of all of your proteins in your body within a matter of seconds effectively shuts down all of your biochemistry chemistry across your entire body. Shortly after this comes a second phenomenon, where your cells do become lysed, which is to say they all burst open. This happens to enough cells quickly enough that the entire body simply shuts down.
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