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It is incredibly easy to ensure that a controlled fire combusts all of its fuel completely. You just add excess oxygen to the combustion chamber.

Uncontrolled fires, and things burning under a blanket of ash, will not have sufficient oxygen in some places, will have CO as a reaction product instead of just CO2, and may leave unburnt carbon. Think about how charcoal is made--oxygen-free pyrolysis.

The waste product of a document incinerator is ash, water, and CO2. It is literally impossible to recover any information content from it.



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