NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 56
EMERGING IS SUES
Work in
Progress
On the 30th anniversary of NFPA 921, the groundbreaking
guide for fire investigations, an influential new
report presents a sobering assessment of just how far
the discipline of fire investigation has yet to go
BY SCOTT SUTHERLAND
R
ANDY WATSON LIKES TO TELL the story of an early
response to NFPA 921, Guide for Fire and Explosion
Investigations. It was 1992, and the first edition of
the guide had just been released. Watson had joined the technical
committee the year before.
" My boss, a fire investigator, comes into my office with a copy
of the document, throws it on my desk, and says, 'You guys are
going to have us wearing lab coats and pocket protectors before
this is over with,' " he says with a grin. " It was because the guide
was based in science. That freaked out a lot of people. "
Prior to NFPA 921, fire investigation, depending on who you
talked to, tended to obscure the science in a haze of art, intuition,
and folklore, what Watson refers to as the " ipse dixit "
factor-unproven dogma handed down as fact, unchallenged
" because it is the way I say it is, " he says. This tendency permeated
much of the profession, including the teaching ranks.
" When I went to the National Fire Academy in 1980, they
taught us that things like crazed glass, big shiny char, and
burn-throughs to the floor, along with black smoke and bright
orange flames, were all indicators of an intentionally set fire
with the use of an ignitible liquid, " says Watson, a career fire
investigator and director of technical training for SEA Limited,
as well as a former technical committee chair for NFPA
921. " The science and research have since demonstrated that
none of those, in and of themselves, mean anything related to
an ignitible liquid being involved. They were anecdotal, and
it's impossible to trace how those assumptions were arrived at
in the first place. My guess is that, at some point, someone got
positive samples for gasoline at a fire scene and happened to
see crazed glass, so they added one and one and came up with
four. And that's what was handed down. "
56 | NFPA JOURNAL * FALL 2022
GUTTER CREDIT
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Fall 2022
Contents
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 1
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Contents
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 3
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 4
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 5
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 6
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 7
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 8
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NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover3
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover4
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