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| Arson |
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| When
detectives arrive at the scene of a fire, the first thing that they
do is interview any witnesses to the fire, for example, the person
who called the fire brigade and those who arrived before the fire
department, whom may have seen how the fire began. When the fire has
been controlled, the temperature falls, allowing the firefighters
to make the building safe for investigation. |
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Select one of the topics below to read more:
--> The
dangers
--> How
the fire began
--> The
reasons
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| The
Dangers |
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Investigators
must be exceptionally careful when entering a burnt building, as the
structure may collapse and there is always the hazard of breathing
in poisonous chemicals such as the popular electrical insulator, toxic
beryllium oxide, and the cancer causing agents such as carcinogenic
combustion products. Collecting and searching for evidence under such
conditions is therefore not as simple a task as other straightforward
scenes. |
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Destructive fires may last for hours and sometimes leave very few
traces of evidence. Photo courtesy of www.imageafter.com. |
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| How
The Fire Began |
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| The
investigation into how the fire started involves beginning at
the lower levels, as fire travels upwards. The signs investigators
search for when looking for the place the fire may have started
include lingering heat, how deep the charring is, the flaking
of building materials like cement and plaster, distorted plastic,
metal and glass resulting from prolonged burning, damaged ceiling
and structural damage. Once they have located where the fire
started, investigators then begin searching for the cause of
the fire. One thing that arsonist's usually always uses is an
agent to speed up the burning process, such as petrol,and a
fire-starting device to start the flames. This fire-starting
device can be as complicated as an electric timer set up to
start the fire at a certain time or as straightforward as a
smouldering cigarette. A majority of the time, the fire-starting
device and the agent that speeds up the burning process manage
to survive the fire. |
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Anything as straight forward as a match is usually the
fire starting device. Photo courtesy of www.imageafter.com. |
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| Investigators
can smell unburned fuels, solvents and paint thinners, as well
as being able to see irregular liquid pooling marks on the floor and
trails along the edge of floorboards, showing that burning liquid
once ran between them. If these signs are not present at the burnt
sight, investigators use hydrocarbon detectors to detect concentrations
of agents that speed up fires and if anything suspicious is found,
to remove it for further analysis in a laboratory. Certain containers
with 'vapour barrier screw lids' are used, as agents for speeding
up fires and are extremely fragile and can evaporate if not stored
properly. |
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| The
Reasons |
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| There are a lot of different
reasons as to why someone would want to burn an area down. One of
the most common reasons for arson is insurance fraud, whereby a failing
business owner takes all the stock to another destination before burning
down the warehouse. However there is one flaw in this cunning plan
because as investigators search for evidence as to why the fire started,
they expect to find the remains of stock, such as, for example, metal
clasps, zippers, fastening and other metal traces. If these are not
found it shows that the warehouse was empty upon burning and could
be a case of attempting to make a fraudulent insurance claim. Another
reason for arson is attempting to hide a murder by disguising it as
an accidental death or hiding evidence of other crimes, such as fraud,
by burning official business records. Criminals may even commit murder
and arson simultaneously to destroy the scene and person at once.
Some of the more uncommon reasons for arson are burning down an area
as a form of revenge or to put another business owner out business,
as well as simply starting a fire because of a compulsive need to
create the fire and watch the flames consume the area. |
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