Experimental studies on the effect of fire accelerants during living room fires and detection of ignitable liquids in fire debris

Abstract

Summary Reconstructing the course of a fire and performing chemical analysis of ignitable liquids in fire debris is an important tool to conduct fire investigations in suspected arson cases. Here, a total of five fire tests has been performed to investigate the effect of fire accelerants on the fire development of a room fire and to prove the capability of analytical methods. Different experimental scenarios have been realized (no accelerant, accelerant applied at different positions, and different amounts of fire accelerant). Each test room was equipped with an identical set of living room furnishing. The location and amount of the fire accelerant applied löschen varied in four of five tests. One experiment was carried out without fire accelerant. Fire quantities such as mass loss (of the entire room), gas temperatures (at several locations in the room), and heat release were determined during the experiments, and chemical‐analytical studies were carried out. A headspace solid phase micro extraction procedure, using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, was used to analyze fire debris samples to potentially detect ignitable liquids. Beside the analysis of fire debris samples, swipe soot samples were analyzed and the detectability of the fire accelerant used was demonstrated. Results show that it is possible to provide evidence of ignitable liquids in soot samples collected from walls. This allows an additional sampling strategy at potential crime scenes, besides taking fire debris samples. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A New Method for Quantifying Fire Growth Rates Using Statistical and Empirical Data – Applied to Determine the Effect of Arson

“…Hence a fire growth rate that is faster than regular combustibles but slower than just flammable liquids is reasonable considering the studied time frame. The value presented by [10] is used which is also supported by the test performed by Krüger et al [19] showing a similar fire growth rate for a room where the fire was started with approximately 1 L of flammable liquids in the different tests.…”

“…Janssens et al [18] studied the effect of ignition of furniture with an accelerant, however only a small amount of flammable liquid was used, 59-118 ml, and the conclusion was that ignition with the large gas burner resulted in the same HRR considering uncertainties. The amount of flammable liquid used in the study by Janssens et al [18] is not considered to cover arson fires since a larger amount of flammable liquid is expected, around 1 L. Krüger et al [19] used approximately 1 L of flammable liquids resulting in a fire growth rate of approximately 0.07 kW/s 2 , the same fire growth rate as Holborn et al [10] used. In this study 0.07 kW/s 2 has been used since it is judged reasonable considering the time frame and amount of flammable liquids, also see Appendix A.…”

Fire Chemistry and Forensic Analysis of Fire Debris

“…The experience reveals that most arsons begin with petroleum-based accelerants. There are several analytical techniques of high sensitivity and effectivity for detecting and characterizing ignitable liquid residues, which are extracted from the fire debris that can be summarized as follows [10,16]: a. Gas Chromatography (GC) b.…”

“…However, the gas chromatography with Flame Ionization Detection (FID) or Mass Spectrometry (MS) is a commonly utilized method for analyzing ignitable liquid residues from fire debris. This method plays a crucial role in providing essential information about air samples collected from the fire scene [16]. The principle of the gas chromatography techniques is based on evaporating the sample and introducing it to a capillary column with inert gas (helium or nitrogen) stream.…”