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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. |
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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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| 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. 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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