Forensic Fire and Explosion Investigation (Everything You Need To Know)

Whenever there is an incident of massive fire or explosion anywhere it leads to destruction and damage to life and property. Forensic Fire and Explosion Investigation helps to understand the cause of the fire and from where it originated. The various possible causes of the fire need to be considered in order to conclude a specific cause. A great deal of expertise is needed in order to determine the same.

Need of Expert Team to Investigate Fire and Explosion

There are a number of agencies which specialise in the in engineering and education of the comprehensive investigations in the field. Proper expertise is needed to undertake these investigations as in most of the cases of fire all the evidence is destroyed and inferences are to be made from minute details. The complete fire origin and cause investigations can be done only by experts who have complete knowledge and are duly certified in this area. A diverse team is needed to substantiate the causes of fire and investigate with the proficiency in electronic, metallurgical, data, structural, architectural, biological forensics.

Timeliness in Investigation is Imperative

One another main aspect of forensic fire and explosion investigation is that it needs to be done fast and with great efficacy as delays can make the evidences go haywire. There is a need for an agency which has extensive experience in the field thus the cause can be assessed quickly and the next steps of recovery can be taken.  The evidences need to be handled very intelligently and only certified investigators can help in that.

Cause and Origin of Fire and Explosion are Important Determiners

One of the most important determiners of the investigations are cause and origin. And they only lead to correct recovery. The team that investigates has to be a pro in this to determine what caused the fire and how it began. It can be an accidental cause or a deliberate attempt. The agencies need to be adept in tracing the cause and give a detail bureau of the occurrence of the event. Thus the first level of the investigation is always finding the cause

The Intricacies of Explosion Investigation

When such a catastrophic incident happens the casualties tend to be higher and there is more damage than mere property. There can be deaths and injuries that can lead to handicaps as well. Probing into the determination of cause of explosion is apparently tricky and the damage is huge thus the physical area in which the evidence is spread is also very large. Such analysis and investigation is very hard and only experts can undertake this. This revolves around a lot of factors like presence of explosive materials, fuel systems, combustible materials, chemical reactions and other factors. There is a great deal of efficacy involved in this to determine the real cause. Each part of evidence needs to be procured and documented in order to find the cause and origin and help in recovery.

Importance of Recovery, Acquisition, Collection and Analysis of Data at the Incident Location

When there is an incident of fire a lot of damage happen to the devices and gadgets. There gadgets contain vital information as the world functions on the digital platforms these days. The damage can be due to heat and other factors that corrupt the data important for investigation. There can be data contained for Programmable Logic controllers, CCTVs, Building control systems that is needed. Information saved with regards of Fire Alarms etc can also help in re-instating the cause of the fire and eventually finding the origin. Thus the forensic investigation team needs to make sure that the data is collected in a secure manner and expertise is available to recover data in such grave cases. The team should have ability to extract data from damaged devices.

Kind of Fire Cases Investigators deal with Typically

Forensic Fire Investigators deal with various areas like Electrical Fires-, Process Plant Fires that occur a large setup like oil refinery, medicine plant or a chemical factory. The investigation is intricate and taxing. They also look into Appliance Fires and Arson cases.

Thus, conclusively Forensic Fire and Explosion Investigation is an extremely intricate and detailed process which needs expert procedures and specialised skills. An intelligibly chosen agency can only provide the best results and provide the results of cause and origin which can be used for recovery.