The Dubious Science of Arson Investigation | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too and this is stuff you should. know uh and before we start Chuck I want. to take a moment to take the opportunity. to take the chance of wishing you a. happy birthday oh thank you eyes of. March same day.

was stabbed can't get over. that anyone anyone famous gets stabbed. on your birthday I don't think so no. definitely not all right well we'll have. to change. that by stabbing you that was. Sinister I even wished you happy. birthday and look what I get I get a. stabbing threat know I know what has. become of us Chuck thanks man big the. big five three such a notable birthday. yeah I feel like. also does it feel any different than the.

5 no um I feel like also we need to give. a retroactive uh Happy Birthday to Jerry. too from last month yeah that's true. happy birthday Jerry you know I did the. ultimate 53y old guy thing for my. birthday I went to uh Athens Georgia for. two Bob Dylan shows wow that were. exactly alike were they really he played. the same show yeah Bob Dylan does it say. like oh let me mix it up for if anyone. wants to come the second night oh I'm. actually surprised I could totally see.

him playing different shows depending on. his mood or whatever he felt like that. night no well that I mean there is. something to that but he's he's 83 he's. got his he's got his set locked in right. now is he really he's 30 years older. than you I know and he's still playing. live music that's awesome could you. understand a word he. said uh yeah it was very a vocal forward. set actually like some real quiet music. and his voice was out front in the. mix uh I see Dylan a lot it's always you. never know what you're gonna get so it's. always that's part of the fun being a.

Dylan fan is like oh I wonder wonder. what he's gonna be like this time is he. in a bad mood tonight no he was great. he's old though man but yeah 83 is very. old to be getting on stage and playing. how long of a set uh like hour and a. half 17 18 songs he played um he plays. piano fulltime now which is sort of the. new change okay uh but he stands I've. never seen anyone do this I've seen. people stand at a keyboard M but I've. never seen anyone stand behind a grand.

piano the entire time basically that is. unusual he would sit a little bit but. he'd sit for like six or seven seconds. and he popped right back up wow I don't. know going on with him that's very. interesting anyway we're here to talk. about arson investigation and big thanks. to Livia for uh her help with this. because you know I was just kind of keen. on like hey Livia put together an. article on like how that works and how. they figure out if someone burn. something down and she came back pretty.

quickly and she was like oh Chuck uh. guess what it turns out like we can talk. a little bit about that but the real. story here is the fact that arson. investigation for most of its time as a. thing has been a lot of sort of. Witchcraft BS yeah folklore that's the. real story yeah mysticism made up. intuition is probably about the kindest. way you can describe how it was for. decades like uh did you see Backdraft no.

I didn't actually isn't it like a Ron. Howard Jam yeah back in the day but. dairo plays a a arson investigator who. is very much fits and you know he. apparently hung out with like three or. four arson investigators and kind of got. his performance from them sure which. makes total sense now that I've read. this because there was a lot of like not. mysticism but really like you know. smelling something and like sniffing. something he chipped off of a wall.

putting your fingers on the railroad. tracks feel really uh corny lines like. one of his corny lines is you know the. only way to kill it is to love it a. little bit man so it's very much in line. with what we found out here which was. that arson investigation has long been. just not scientific no and there's like. we're not just here to to poke fun at. arson investigators because they used. unscientific methods the big problem. with this is those unscientific.

intuitive methods have been proven time. and time again to be just utterly wrong. but they're used still to this day in. some jurisdictions to put people away. sometimes for life sometimes to death. some people have been put to death under. the junk science that arson. investigation is and has been for. decades and has only recently started to. really kind of come in line and become a. scientific endeavor.

yeah for sure um so big thanks Olivia. said to uh a couple of gentlemen Douglas. star and David Gran uh they wrote some. pretty great uh pieces Douglas star for. discover and David Gran for the New. Yorker can I just say David Grant's New. Yorker article it's called Tri by fire. about um Cameron Todd Willingham and his. wrongful execution I think basically. everybody should read that article at. some point in time in their life it's. just gut-wrenching.

yeah yeah great great investigation. great. journalism uh and so let's get going. here I guess the first thing we should. say is that um the first people to get. involved in arson investigation were not. uh scientists like it was sort of. developed as a thing by firefighters by. cops by law enforcement generally and. not people who understood the scientific. method uh the first book about fire. investigation was called fire. investigations very appropriate uh no.

colon it was published in 1945 by Harry. uh ret of the fire Underwriters. investigation Bureau of Canada and it. was very much written for an audience of. law enforcement to be like all right. here's your handbook uh if you want to. prove arson right that's the big problem. with it is in addition to it basically. being like old wives tales and folklore. um it came from the position like if. you're invest this if you're using this.

book you're trying to prove arson not. you're trying to figure out what started. a fire and it may or may not have been. arson it's here's what to look for for. arson and the problem is is a lot of. really. common um features that are found after. a fire were attributed wrongly to arson. and this is where it started to spread. uh all the way back in. 1945 you know what a better title would. have been what What to Expect When. You're Expecting arson.

that was an alltime great chuck oh thank. you I just thought of that so uh that. book was sort of the standard until 1969. about 20 what five years later or so I. goty Nam Paul Kirk uh biochemist this. time and forensic scientist at. University of Cal Berkeley um published. a different book called fire. investigation well it didn't have the S. so it must have been the prequel yeah. this one should have been called fire. investigation colon uh you won't believe. how much has changed so yeah so Paul.

Kirk being a scientist he's like no you. really want to track down what started. the fire and then start making your. assumptions after you've collected. evidence and analyzed it don't start. from the premise that this is arson and. then look for signs that support your. premise that's wrong that's not how. science Works um the problem is is like. Paul Kirk was like use use the. scientific method and the fire. investigators said to Paul Paul there's. not a lot of sence for us to to compare.

our findings against someone help help. Nanny State and then Nanny state swooped. in and improved everything. forever yeah about eight years later or. so after that book in 1977 there was a. government report that agreed hey. there's not a lot of stuff going on and. so there were a couple of guides put out. um uh arson and arson investigation in'. 77 uh which was based on surveys from. leading investigators and then fire in.

the fire investigation handbook from. 1980 and we should just kind of read. through like this quick list because. this is this was the General thinking of. like how you can tell if it's arson if. these things are there in the burned. house uh I'll do the first one um. everyone knows this the most severely. burned area of the house is where it. started yeah it just makes sense that's. that had the opportunity to burn the. longest so it burned the hardest right. make makes sense totally all these make.

sense also heat rises which means Fire. Rises and smoke Rises so the ceiling is. always the most burned part of Any Given. room which they call compartments in. fire investigation lingo um and that if. you find burned floors that. automatically says an accelerate was. used because you dump accelerate on the. floor and light it and that's how the. floor gets charred Telltale sign if you. find a charred floor an accelerant was. used.

uh also if you see a puddle shaped Char. on that floor uh that's another Telltale. sign for liquid uh because smoke spreads. out if you see a v-shaped soot mark on. the wall um that is going to literally. point to the origin of the fire right. and another one that kind of um was an. umbrella category for some subcategories. is that uh an accelerate fueled Fire. Burns hotter than any other kind of Fire. it also Burns faster as a result so that.

means that all sorts of weird stuff. happens um in a hotter faster fire for. example something that they call crazed. glass which is glass that has this weird. webbing of cracks through it which. they're like is again an indicator of a. very hot Fast Fire which indicates an. accelerant was used so you find glass. with webs in it that is a Sure Fire. indicator that that somebody started. this fire using some sort of accelerate.

or fuel yeah they said that stuff's it's. craze and they went don't you mean. glazed I said no let's just call it. craze since it's so close to another. glass term right he goes huh I hadn't. thought about that that makes it even. better so uh Nixon Believe It or Not uh. kind of got things going in 1973 when um. there was a report from that. Administration that fires caused more. than 11 billion in damage killed 12,000. people in 197. crazy uh a lot of this was found out to.

be exaggerated but it didn't matter. because that kind of lit a match no pun. intended under the government's butt to. get uh to get into this and they created. the uh and funded the center for fire. research um which is when they basically. said all right let's get a 100 Engineers. uh to really look at this from an. objective point of view and and come. back to us with some good stuff yeah one. of the early things that came out of. this that was really groundbreaking was. called the K Kell meter and it was.

invented by a guy with the wonderful. name of vennis Barkus who um is a fire. safety expert to this day and The Cone. calom meter is essentially like a vent. Hood a giant vent hood that has a ton of. sensors um attached to it and you set. something on fire say like a specific. kind of couch and it and it records all. sorts of different things the chemical. composition of the of the um the the. gases that are released the opacity of.

the smoke how hot it burns how long it. burns it even has a a scale so you can. measure you can compare the weight of. the soit compared to the weight of like. what the what the furniture was like. before it it caught fire and you can. take all this and put it in a database. like what you're doing now is is um. carrying out repeatable experiments to. produce data that people can use to um. to compare their findings to which was. again the problem that fire. investigators we're having that the. nanny state swooped in and helped and.

this is how they helped yeah and just to. uh create an image in the viewer's. mind's ey if you're picturing that thing. as some humongous thing where you set a. couch on it uh that's not the deal it's. very small actually uh and it's it looks. like a little camp stove sort of with. all these things hooked to it so you cut. a piece of the couch off is what happens. actually they have larger ones too that. that you can set essentially a house on. fire underneath one oh well okay but I'm. talking about just the general lab.

version okay okay okay they have them. they have them bigger than a house yes I. saw that in some Labs that they have. like house simulations in they like the. roof will be the the. calorimeter oh okay so it's it's like. all sorts of different sizes we're both. right I think is the happy outcome of. this okay there's also another. experiment that um or another finding. that these experiments yielded which was. flashover right yeah. I thought I mean I could have sworn in.

the movie Backdraft they called that. Backdraft maybe that's a similar term or. maybe it's the same thing or maybe it. was a oh it is okay it's a backdraft. seems to be a component of a flashover. oh okay I guess that makes sense so a. flashover is when uh you've got a fire. going in a house you've got a big layer. of smoke that's got all kinds of like. combustible gases all sorts of uh little. particles that are super flammable up in. that smoke uh it's at the ceiling. collecting and collecting and then just.

getting more dense and going down down. down as a room heats up and then as it. hits a certain point basically a high. enough temperature to ignite it um there. it's like an explosion basically it can. hit a th000 degrees and when that. flashover happens you can see Char marks. and burn marks that uh previously people. were like the only way to get that is if. you like dump gas all over a room right. and that's 1,000° C like 1800° fhe right. that is really hot and it happens.

there's a really steep incline where. that temperature just increases like. that and everything stuff just. spontaneously catches fire because it's. so hot it's reached the ignition point. for that couch or that TV or whatever. the whole room catches fire and like you. said it does all sorts of it leaves all. sorts of Telltale marks that had long. been attributed to arson for example the. idea that the floor is charred or. another one is um kind of related to the. idea that if the floor is charred an. accelerant was used um if the underneath.

or if the um bottom of a couch what's. that called the underside of a couch the. under Carriage of the couch that's where. the socks are the fanny of the couch um. if that's burned depends on what country. you're in that's true if that's burned. um then then they were like well an. accelerant was used it spilled over. under the couch and and caught the couch. on fire no when the whole room becomes. what's called fully involved the whole. room's on fire the bottom of the couch. can very easily get get burned same with.

the underside of the bed and any. furniture and the floor so that's that. was a big finding too and then the other. thing about the flashover is it can it. can basically stop and stay in suspended. animation until oxygen comes in and it. catches fire again but wherever that. Oxygen's coming from the fire follows in. like a line and it can go around the. corner up the stairs through a bedroom. door and out a bathroom window if that's. where the Oxygen's coming from the fire. follow it that is what's a what a.

backdraft is in my understanding okay I. think that's that I haven't seen that. movie in a while but that sounds about. right okay cool even though it was a. movied version you know right I think. the science in it was supposed to be. pretty good oh it was it yeah I mean it. was Ron Howard you know so what was the. I mean this is like the early 90s wasn't. it uh yeah it seems about right I mean. this would have been so one thing that. that you'll find when you start looking. into um fire investigation is you know.

Paul Kirk wrote that book in. 1969 and over time like more and more. scientists got involved in fire. investigation but it's. still like um percolating throughout the. field like so in the early 90s there was. still a lot of Hokum involved and I'm. sure Backdraft repeated a lot of that. too oh yeah that the whole character was. sort of you know that mystical guy who. understood fire you know more than.

anyone yeah um another big thing. happened in the early 90s besides the. movie Backdraft in. 1991 was the Oakland black hole a big. fire in Oakland California uh that. destroyed about um close to 3,000 homes. but it was a really good chance to go in. there as a fire investigator and kind of. see what happened um they looked at 50. different houses and they found you know. sort of the normal um things that you. might um find when you're thinking arson.

uh but one of the big things they found. was that crazing on the glass they did. some experimentation with that glass and. they found they they basically said like. this whole notion that crazing is. because of arson isn't true at all it's. when they spray the windows with that. water uh and it's at a really high heat. that it cools super fast that's where. you're going to get it um and this is. this is one of those that. seemed really like they should have. known this earlier.

just because people have been glow. blowing glass and working with glass for. so long I'm surprised someone didn't. know that before that they no that was a. finding from that Oakland black hole. Yeah like wasn't one glass maker that. was like oh by the way if you get it wet. that that happens these these like this. industry or field doesn't even listen to. Supreme Court or other court rulings. they're not going to listen to some. glass blower yeah that's true those. those are as hippie dippy as it comes. the other thing about that Oakland Co um.

opportunity cuz you like they knew what. caused the fire they knew for a fact it. wasn't arson in these houses they were. originally planning on examining a 100. houses but the um features and. characteristics that they found were so. uniform that they stopped at 50 the. group agreed like we're not going to. learn anything from another 50 of them. we totally got this like it's that. repeatable like like this is what. happens when a flashover occurs all. these telltale signs of arson are. totally made up yeah I say we take a.

break Chuck and we'll come back and. we'll talk a little more about arson. investigation. [Music].

so um there were a couple more uh like. huge landmarks I guess in the late 80s. or mid 80s early 90s as far that really. pushed arson in fire investigation. forward um one was a terrible uh Hotel. fire from New Year's Eve. 1986 uh in I think San Juan Puerto Rico. at the DuPont Plaza hotel which I think. was a Sheridan at the time um the hotel. was in a dispute with its workers over. um a Union contract and some disgruntled.

workers set a bunch of furniture on fire. in one of the ballrooms and ended up. killing like 98 people the fire spread. really quick the the reason why this is. such a landmark is because some people. armed with all this data that things. like the calom meter had produced um. came in and and added created computer. models and essentially what they found. was their computer could show that this. fire happened exactly as the witnesses. said it did and ultimately LED back to.

the origin which was those three. disgruntled dudes in the ballroom. setting the furniture on fire yeah so. the problem though as you mentioned is. that uh you're not going to get these. two scientists from the center for fire. research on every case of every burned. house in the United States um so it's. you know that that was one of the. biggest problems um I guess one big. milestone was uh the line Street fire in.

1990 this was another case where it's. really sad there was a guy named uh. Gerald Lewis in Jacksonville Florida he. was charged with arson uh and murder for. setting his house on fire uh killing his. wife uh her pregnant sister and four. kids and got out with his son uh no one. else was able to get out and he said hey. my son started this fire he's playing. with matches on the couch in the living. room and arson investigators came in and. said you know in the traditional way and.

we're like no there's no way there was. an accelerant here there's that puddle. Char on the floor uh that V pattern that. we talked about which should you know. literally point to the source of the. fire is not pointing at that couch and. this was a big case um prosecutors. called on uh called in a guy named John. uh lenti uh from Georgia he was a fire. investigator and John uh Dean who wrote. or co-wrote at least a manual on fire. investigation to basically come in and. say hey can you come in here and confirm.

that this guy's lying so we can put him. away and lint walked away from that uh. investigation and. said well at first he looks like he's. guilty to me um so I can I can confirm. that you should go ahead and prosecute. but then they got uh a chance and it. seems like these opportunities are real. big thing in fire where like hey we. actually have a little bit of money to. run an experiment here and and that is. when they recreated this house uh right.

down to the kind of couch it was and. everything that was in the house. basically and set it set that couch on. fire to see if it would burn like that. and it did yeah it the prosecution spent. $2,000 to recreate that fire in a house. like two or one or two houses down that. was exactly identical in structure to. the one that Gerald Lewis had had been. accused of burning down and I mean they. went all out to recreate it so much so.

that they brought some family members in. and said does this look like what the. house looked like in the night of the. fire and they said yes this is it like. it's like I'm it's Eerie so they they. started by setting the couch on fire. like basically trying out Lewis's um uh. account of events and everybody involved. in this experiment um just expected the. the fire to kind of like maybe start to. slowly catch and then sputter and go out. like the sofa was not just going to. catch so they were all really surprised. when the fire caught and then caught the.

other the other cushion on fire and then. all of a sudden caught the like a big. portion of the room on fire that was the. first thing and then after the fire. really burned and they evaluated. everything they were like all of these. things that are supposedly arson related. they're they're here like this is this. the couch setting the couch being set on. fire produced all of those things that. is being used as evidence against this. guy yeah and this is this was a huge. change for linti personally as an.

investigator he was basically like uh he. said I had an epiphany you know almost. in a guy to die based on these theories. that were a load of crap was his quote. so that not only sort of changed his way. of thinking it started a change in the. industry but like you mentioned earlier. one of the problems is is that uh. getting that stuff to trickle down to. the local you know level is really. really hard especially in in a. profession um where they seemed really.

really kind of stuck in these old. methods of the like the I'll just call. it the dairo way that's a great great. name and uh it was really hard to get. that information even if they got the. information a lot of them were still. like uh no you know it's not a science. it is a lot of intuition so much so that. in. 1997 uh the International Association of. ARS investigators argued against the. Supreme Court um there was something. called the dber standard which basically. said uh in 1993 that like hey the.

scientific method has to be used if. you're an expert testifying at a trial. and they said no no no that's great but. not for us because this isn't a science. and we should be Exempted from that yeah. that was 1997 Paul Kirk wrote the book. in 1969 everybody remember and so you'd. think okay. surely shortly after that the the like. the industry would have come around and. that's Absolut absolutely not true in. 2011 the National Fire Protection.

Association which now puts out what's. considered like the gold standard manual. on on arson or fire investigation yeah. back in 2011 their manual said that um. if you used the process of elimination. and couldn't determine what started a. fire you should probably go ahead and. assume it was arson so if you didn't. know what the cause was go ahead into. court and testify that it was probably. our and that guy should get the death. penalty for murder because of the people.

who died in the house yeah 2011 Chuck. yeah it's probably a good time to talk. about that case you mentioned uh the. Cameron uh Willingham case this is uh. this was in 1991 it was in December of. 91 in Corsicana Texas uh Cameron. Willingham and Stacy Willingham lived in. this house burned down uh killed their. three children uh Stacy was gone at the. time it was you know just before. Christmas so getting Christmas presents.

for her kids Cameron said that you know. there was so much heat and smoke that he. tried to get his kids but couldn't had. to get out of the house and call for. help was you know what he thought was. the best method and this was one of. those case where the uh the the the fire. local fire assistant fire chief I guess. uh Douglas fog and I got Emanuel Vasquez. who had a lot of experience as an. investigator came in and identified.

these charring spots what they called. pour patterns like you poured gasoline. or something um the V patterns that they. saw which is where the fires are. supposedly started uh they found in the. hallway where the kids bedroom was and. at the front door like this was clearly. someone trying to trap people inside uh. and this guy did it yeah that. essentially he started by pouring. accelerant in the kids bedroom walked. backwards out of the hall while still. still pouring acceler. and then all the way to the front door.

uh and then let a match and this Vasquez. guy if he wasn't if if he wasn't one of. the people that dairo hung out with I. will be really surprised because from. what you are describing and from what. I've read he's exactly that kind of guy. his work I mean it was not 91 he. probably was his work was later. criticized like when we said that it's. been described as mysticism they were. talking about this guy's report on the. Willingham case he and he had tons of. experience so he was very widely.

respected in the field of fire. investigation something like 1,00 or. 1,400 fires under his belt as an. investigator the thing that sends a red. up about him is he said most of them. were arson there's nowhere on the planet. where some high percentage of fires like. that is actually ARS maybe Detroit in. the 90s maybe Detroit but certainly not. just in in Texas in general right where. this guy was was working so he was. apparently one of those people he died.

in 1994 but he was apparently one of. those investigators who started. backwards from this was arson or I see. that Telltale sign of arson so now I. have to figure out what else supports. that theory and he did and um his report. was very damning it was very convincing. and it helped put Cameron Willingham. away there were some other things that. um the prosecution used about Cameron. Willingham uh that is super early 90s. late 80s Texas he had an Iron Maiden.

poster in in the utility room the can I. play with Madness poster you know where. like um somebody's punching through. Eddie's head I don't know the poster. that's what you're asking it's worth. looking up it's a work of art okay he. had the fact that he had an Ironman. postr up meant that he was interested in. death and probably involved in Satanism. like St he had a tattoo with a skull. with a snake around it so obviously he. was a killer of children um and their. whole their whole premise theory was. that he had killed murdered his two twin.

one-year-old daughters and one. 2-year-old Daughter by fire because they. were getting in the way of his lifestyle. of like hanging out and drinking and. going out um and he was prosecuted and. ended up in 2004 receiving the death. penalty and most people who are familiar. with the case point to it and say this. is a clear example of an innocent person. being executed that's right and. uh 2004 this is many years later.

obviously uh he was scheduled for. Execution and a guy named Gerald Hurst. who was an. investigator uh who had gotten some. previous charges dropped against someone. else in a similar case uh some people. got together who were you know. supporting Willingham and said hey you. know you're you're the best at getting. someone off we don't think he did this. can you help uh he went in and said well. first of all uh the report from V. because the first line says in order to.

kill fire you have to love it a little. bit and that's just that's just weird. it's a red flag it's a red flag um no he. he looked in and saw a lot of issues. with their work um first of all the. assumption that only and this is one of. the big ones like only an accelerant. could have caused a fire this hot that's. one that you see or used to see at least. a lot in arson investigations like it. had to be gasoline or something because. it was so hot um The Craze glass again. that's another one we've already been. over that uh and then he started just.

looking at the account the more he. looked at it he was like you know what. this seems like it real or the evidence. he said the more I look at this this. looks like it really matches up with his. account of what happened the other thing. we didn't mention too was that they. found mineral spirits um at the house. and when Hurst looked into it he was. like this mineral spirits they found was. on the front porch by the by the grill. and that's what he used it for right so. like that's not a piece of of evidence. no so this guy this investigator Gerald.

Hurst just completely demolished the the. evidence that was used to convict and. eventually execute Cameron Willingham. but the uh Board of parole and pardons. like they got the report and they. apparently didn't open it and voted to. uphold the conviction and execution um. and so like this is this is I think when. the Innocence Project was just starting. I don't even know if they'd come around. by this time um the problem. the problem with arson cases because. other people have gotten off thanks to.

people like Gerald Hurst who've come. back and been like hey hey hey hey like. Criminal Courts aren't super Savvy and. you're still listening to arson. investigators who don't who are using. folklore on the stand to convict people. here's a here's an actual scientific. analysis of what the evidence shows like. it can get people off but it's so not a. Smoking Gun like DNA evidence is instead. it's there's a different interpretation. and it's quite possible wasn't arson and. is that enough to to reverse a.

conviction and set somebody free from. prison not necessarily so it's still. kind of like a there's still plenty of. people probably who were convicted of. arson on junk science that are still in. prison is I guess what I'm trying to. say all right should we we need to take. another break right I think so all right. let's take another break we'll talk. about where we are today with arson. investigation like surely things have. changed right surely.

[Music]. all right so um you know if you follow. the news there you can you can see a lot. of uh I guess ground being gained as far. as overturning convictions on arson but.

it it's a tough one uh like you were. talking about before the break it's you. know it's hard to get overturned a lot. of the evidence is just gone obviously. because it was a fire uh or maybe the. investigation to begin with wasn't done. well and stuff wasn't saved um so it's. just it's a hard thing to get overturned. even with the new science that we have. these days it's not like a lot of other. cases right um there's the NFPA 921. colon guide for fire and explosive. investigations which uh this was.

published in 1992 to begin with and this. was the gold standard you're talking. about right yeah it's the gold standard. now it's also I think the same manual. that said just assume it's arson if you. can't figure out what started it well. they've been updating it obviously every. year which is what they do with guides. like this they just I guess ripped a lot. of pages out and um this is sort of it's. a book though that's not as much um it's. aimed more toward like insurance. companies and law firms because a lot of.

this stuff is um like a lot of times. when you see something really. investigated or reversed it's because of. a big civil case against like a a. drapery manufacturer or something that's. getting sued because their their. curtains went up you know too fast or. something uh and so they had the kind of. money to pour into a defense that. wouldn't happen in a criminal trial yeah. so over time um civil courts have become. way more Savvy as far as fire.

investigation goes as on the whole. compared to Criminal Courts um in. Criminal Courts it's still very possible. that kind of pretty poor evidence can be. admitted and used against somebody um. and that's not just the courts who are. at fault like it's the investigators. themselves who. are at this point resistant to change if. you're if you're not getting on board. with the idea that science is showing. like yes there's a lot of stuff that's. wrong with traditional arson.

investigation or fire investigation. you're just you're you're you're. resisting now there's just it's been. disseminated too widely for too long and. I mean I guess I can understand where. that resistance come from because all. this this what your training was handed. down from people who had Decades of. experience and knew what they were. talking about and you venerated them. because they were an old veteran of the. fire department or something like that. um your beliefs are now being challenged. your intuition is being derided as.

Superstition and folklore and you're. probably being treated like a bumpkin um. and then you also probably believe that. these Eggheads are freeing convicted. arsonists from prison or trying to at. least so what the hell's going on the. the world is topsy turvy upside down I. don't like I have I'm not dairo I. haven't hung out with any arson. investigators but I would suspect based. on everything I've read that that would. account for any resistance or pockets of.

resistance that are still left yeah I. would say so probably uh and you know. what it it's probably one of those. things that as people age out and retire. uh the new generation of of better. understanding will probably you know. probably be the the one in the Forefront. I would hope so we'll talk a little bit. about how you can actually um find the. origin point of a fire in a more. scientific way it's a tough thing. obviously to find where a fire started. once a fire has like fully burned down a.

house um there they have been studies. even there was one um cited by uh Bey. and. Oliva Oliva Oliva sure um you don't. need that if a fire started to burn uh. for just three minutes after the. flashover happened that investigators. basically couldn't tell what quadrant of. a room not even like the very spot but. even what quadrant that the fire. originated in any better than chance 3.

minutes after the flashover yeah but so. all this to say it's really really hard. to do oh for sure because the the. flashover again it's full involvement. the entire room's on fire um they did. say that within if the fire is put out. within 30 seconds of flashover they're. right about 84% of the time big. difference it is a big difference um but. they have found that there are some. reliable ways of tracing the origin of. fires or tracing the source of fires.

right so if the vshape I don't think we. ever said that v-shaped Char that used. to like be considered to literally point. to the source of the fire those form. where opposite where an oxygen source. enters in a um uh a flashover room a. room that's in flashover it just forms. that right um or they also found that. like puddling those puddle marks marks. that clearly show accelerate those.

curtains on fire from that drap. manufacturer when they fall and hit the. ground and burn they can leave the same. kind of marks right so um if you have. all these confusing signs that just. don't make sense anymore how do you find. the source of a fire and as I was saying. they they have established there are. some that are just genuinely Telltale. and they might not say this is arson but. they can kind of lead you to where the. origin of a fire was and hopefully you. can figure it out from there yeah for. sure um one way is to look at the the.

bodies of victims uh it's obviously a. very sad way to investigate something. but you have to do it uh and they have. found that people if you're really. really close to the fire um you know I. think most people think like oh no you. don't die from the fire you die from. carbon monoxide poisoning that is true. if you are further away from the fire if. you are very close to that fire you. usually die uh you die from edema in. which your the Airways of your body. swell up from the heat uh and your. organs shut down from the heat which is.

I got to imagine the a terrible terrible. way to go right so depending on the the. um arrangement of the bodies throughout. like a house you can kind of Trace who. was closer to the origin of the fire the. source of the fire right or at least. where it was you know hottest right okay. which isn't always where it started as. we now know that's true um there's. another one called arcing that's pretty. interesting um as a fire melts the. insulation on wires in the house like. the the electrical wiring um the the.

electricity can jump from one exposed. wire to another and it causes an arc the. um and that's a you can tell that just. by looking at um an two electrical wires. where an arc happened that can only. happen while the power is on so you can. actually kind of say okay this Arc. happened uh at this point in the fire. because the power went out at this point. or we turned the power off at this point. so this Arc couldn't have happened after.

that which helps walk you backward. toward the origin point of the fire or. the direction of it timing wise uh they. also have just a great database now it's. called the ignitable liquids reference. collection database or the I LR c d not. bad doesn't spell anything but that's. fine uh and that's basically if you find. just any flammable liquid um at the fire. site then you can just send it to the. lab and they can at least tell you what. it is right um there's also guidelines.

now for people who aren't fire. investigators but are likely going to be. the first people on the scene like. firefighters or EMS that kind of thing. um and it's just stuff to be on the. lookout for so that you can you can tell. fire investigators later what you saw. really Iron Maiden shirts yeah did what. did they have an Iron Maiden poster. that's one um you you had to move a. refrigerator to open a door to vent the. fire or something like that um was the. refrigerator plugged in was the. appliance turned on this space heater.

that we think might have been the cause. was it in the on or off position um when. you show up to a. scene are you seeing somebody um who. you've seen at other scenes yeah that's. a big one firef fires are like yes I. have the paramedic did it they're like. no no no like in the crowd like not. working the fire like somebody who's in. the crowd they're like oh no I haven't. seen anybody yeah that's a good one uh. if there were any like uh electrical. line issues that you could see or.

whether or like if you see you know a a. big winds caus a tree to fall nearby or. something those are kind of obvious. things um but again these aren't for. non-. investigators um what's another one. another one keeping track of what people. who are witnesses or who were in the. house um or the structure when it caught. fire are saying and telling you. especially if they say something like. the paramedic did. it yeah yeah. totally I got I got interviewed one time.

by a a fire investigator what yeah I. kind of forgot about this my brother and. I we used to love exploring sort of. abandoned homes and things um on fire no. no no uh although I did have a little. fire thing for a little while I think a. lot of people go through that phase. nothing big just like you know oo I'm. going to set this stick on fire in the. woods um very dangerous though even. though nothing happened by the way just. want to make it clear yeah um there was.

a abandoned um shed uh across the street. from us it was a house the people moved. out new people moved in and built a. really big house but left this old shed. and we had been in it exploring and it. was just just full of junk and we as a. young child I was I was probably like 10. years old um was was quizzed by the uh I. guess the cops uh a couple of weeks. later my brother and I because it turns. out that the people said that there were.

a lot of really expensive things in. there and it was a big Insurance claim. and I think he burned it down and said. there was a bunch of expensive stuff and. he was I believe looking back he was. thwarted by those darn kids wow and. their no we didn't take our dog in there. but I remember just it was like no man. those was a mannequin and a bunch of. files and just some frame pictures it. was Jun it was junk you're like I. remember the mannequin cuz Scott. pretended to kiss it and I think he.

actually did KISS. it uh I don't know I don't remember we. never had to like go into court or. anything so uh I'll have to ask my mom. kind of what happened with that but just. remember that yeah what a great anecdote. dude to end this with well I appreciate. that so I I made it all up that's fine. we'll edit that out um I guess I guess. the upshot of this is if you uh know a. fire investigator and arson investigator. give him a hug and say let's stick to. the.

science uh if you want to know more. about that kind of thing go out and. research there's a lot of really. interesting stuff to read about arson. investigation and you could definitely. do worse um than reading David gr's. trial by fire in the New Yorker and. Douglas Stars uh article in discover. magazine I think uh spark of science. maybe something like that check it out. oh that means it's time for listener. mail sorry for I fell down on my. [Music].

duties that's right uh brutalism. followup here hey guys while listening. to that episode I was delighted At The. Mention of habitat 67 as a McGill. student habitat 67 has been touched on. in a number of my classes especially. because this architectural Staple in. Montreal was designed by Migel alumni. mosha safy nice uh I wanted to share a. fun fact about the development of. habitat that I learned in art history a. few years ago uh during the design. process safy use Lego blocks to help him.

model the building design in fact he. used so many Lego blocks that he bought. out all of the Legos at a number of. Montreal toy. stores pretty fun uh anyway thanks for. all you uh do you guys uh stuff you. should know is always my first podcast. recommendation to others and has helped. me become a more inquisitive person over. the last few years so keep up the good. work and that is from uh Kestrel. muscleman great name great name for sure. thanks for that story we appreciate it. the great Lego shortage of 60 something.

in Montreal yeah uh if you want to get. in touch with us like Kestrel did man. that is a great name you can email us. send us an email to stuff podcast. iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts iHeart. Radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows. [Music].