When I joined the fire brigade in 1967 in the north of England, my father bought me a set of books known as “Manuals of Firemanship”.
Originally written in 1945 and reprinted in 1962, the section on causes of fire was limited to just two and a quarter pages, and The Detection of Arson was just one page!
In the 1990s, some of us started to try and change things, bringing the expertise back to where we believed it should be. I recall my collaboration with an old friend, Mick Gardiner, a former London fire investigator and current fire investigation trainer.
Fire officers not “experts” in court
Before the late 1990s, written guidance to fire brigades precluded fire officers (and police officers) from giving expert evidence, the main explanation being a lack of qualifications. There were some exceptions, of course, and we were occasionally asked to present evidence (which was acceptable because of our “experience”), almost like a professional witness.
Together, Mick and I, along with a few others, managed to influence a change in the rules that prevented fire officers from being called as expert witnesses. The picture started to change, slowly but surely.
Fire managers are becoming scientifically qualified, and it’s pleasing to know we had a hand in the change of their acceptance. However, we’ve recently seen the demise of the Forensic Science Service, and it’s apparent that there is currently a national glut of forensic scientists. Ironically, this has meant redundancies for some scientists, and with waiting lists as long as your arm, it’s very difficult to join the fire and rescue service in the UK. A sign of the times?
Analytical science will always be required, and my worry is that, in some cases, this might be influenced by cost. Fingerprint and DNA evidence is now a realistic possibility at fire scenes, and we will always need specialists who do this science.
There are fundamental differences with UK systems when compared with those in the US. Fire investigators in the UK have no police powers of arrest or fire investigation powers other than being able to take items and samples away for investigation or analysis. The only prosecution role and powers allocated to the fire and rescue service in the UK are limited to fire safety legislation.
In contrast, US fire marshals can be both fire and police officers (or law enforcers), and most of them have powers to investigate crimes along with powers of arrest. Many even carry firearms as a part of their standard equipment.
Crocodiling
I recall the early, so-called “scientific” information that would assist us in our fire investigation process. The A cent a’-A”arrow theoryA cent a’-A_ would point us towards where the fire started, and marks/patterns on concrete were indicative of flammable liquids.
“Alligatoring” or “crocodiling” (depending upon your choice of critter!), it was suggested, could indicate the temperature attained, and even the size of the carbon scales were seen as useful indicators. It could even indicate that flammable liquids had been used to start fires.
Measuring the depth of char of timber might suggest the point of origin, along with comparisons of the rates of char, regardless of type of wood involved. While there was a little wisdom in some of this, there were individuals who took it all so very literally, ignoring common sense as well as science.
Looking back, I might have been initially sucked into this to some degree, but soon realised that measuring char depths was never practical or scientific in real fire scenes. You had to be careful who you confided your disbeliefs to though, so as not to be seen as a luddite.
Rule out arson, not the other way round
By all means, be suspicious. To this day, I always begin my fire investigations with the possibility that a fire has been deliberately started. I investigate this possibility until evidence or information is presented to discount it.
This is because I’ve investigated so many fires that have turned out to have been deliberately started or set, even after initial presentations suggested an accidental cause. I also teach this theory and practice to students.
In the UK, once the possibility of criminality is suspected, it is most important that the investigation becomes the responsibility of the police — although it’s fair to say that the police rely heavily upon information provided by the fire and rescue service.
The US case involving Mr. Ed Graf has been highlighted in the media recently, and it seems that he might have been convicted after presentation of evidence that could have included interpretation of alligatoring and fire patterns.
I am not aware of the details of this case, and it would wrong to comment, but I would never have been comfortable with suggestions of such “evidence”, if indeed this was all that was presented.
Some years ago, I was involved in a case where unsafe evidence put a man in prison for almost a quarter of a century. There is no doubt in my mind, had this case come to trial during the time the UK had capital punishment on the statute books, an irreversible travesty of injustice would have taken place. Bad enough that he spent so many years locked away.
Capital punishment is still meted out as punishment in the US, and it makes me wonder how many fire cases might have seen this end. I recall discussing this with fire investigators in New York City many years ago.
I have always considered how confident fire investigators would have to be with their findings knowing that someone may be executed on the strengths (and possibly weaknesses) of evidence presented at trial. It also reinforces my passionate belief of the barbarity of execution.
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Fantastic article, John. Unbelievable that fire officers weren’t allowed to be experts before the late 90s in this country. But good to hear that the training has caught up with the need for it.
Superb Article. I am currently working through some fire investigation learning, very interesting. Do you provide investigation training, where can I find out more?
Obviously at one point crocodiling sounded like a sure way to measure the intensity of a fire and someone did some research into it. How do the new methods vary? Is this a matter of forensic technology being better now than it was 20 years ago and therefore you can get better data?
Some interesting points in the article and many which I agree with but some I have a slightly different view on. Some years I ago I studied fire safety in the US and spent time with a number of US Fire Departments including a Fire Investigator and he was routinely armed and had to be trained to the same standard as a police officer. Their powers were indeed very wide and they were also authorized to use agent provocateur techniques, which I always found very interesting. I also attended the US Fire Training Academy at Emmitsburg and what I found… Read more »
Great comments @fireman999 and I think it’s a really interesting point that we have no NFPA equivalent over here. And, it’s fair to say, this is unlikely to change with the general trend towards deregulation in the UK at the moment.
(If that was a question directly for John. I think he does training, but not sure about investigation training. If you search ‘John Williamson fire’ you should find his website!)
Same thoughts here, but it’s great to hear that they have corrected that since and have improved training to produce competent and expert fire officers.
Absolutely. The more a fire officer understands a fire, the better he can fight it, I would have thought.