Incident Investigation & Analysis Flashcards

NFPA 921 lists four fire cause classifications. Which of these is NOT one of them?

Answer: Suspicious

The four classifications are accidental, natural, incendiary, and undetermined; 'suspicious' is not an accepted classification.

Why does NFPA 921 not accept 'negative corpus' as a basis for an incendiary determination?

Answer: It names a cause without evidence supporting it, based only on ruling out other causes

Negative corpus calls a fire incendiary just because accidental causes were eliminated, with no positive evidence of an ignition source.

Which professional qualifications standard covers fire investigators?

Answer: NFPA 1033

NFPA 1033 sets the job performance requirements for fire investigators, including the topics they must know.

Which U.S. Supreme Court case extended the Daubert reliability standard to all expert testimony, including fire investigators?

Answer: Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael

Kumho Tire (1999) applied Daubert's gatekeeping test to technical and experience-based expert testimony.

Multiple separate, unconnected fires found at a scene usually point to:

Answer: A possible incendiary fire, after ruling out fall-down, drop-down, and spread through hidden voids

Unrelated separate origins can point to an incendiary fire, but only after legitimate ways fire spreads have been ruled out.

What does a 'trailer' at an arson scene refer to?

Answer: Fuel deliberately placed to spread fire from one area to another

Trailers are ignitable liquids or combustibles laid out to spread fire between areas or to multiple set fires.

Which ignition source is most commonly linked to spontaneous heating in fire investigations?

Answer: Rags soaked in linseed oil

Drying oils like linseed oil oxidize and give off heat, so piled oily rags can self-heat to ignition.