Investigating Appliance and Product Failures Using Exemplars

Michael Stoddard, MEng, CFI, CFEI and Jeremiah Pratt, PE, CFI, CFEI, CFVI present at the October 2022 Massachusetts IAAI conference

#Exemplar units are useful tools in fire investigations involving appliances (and other items). They allow the investigator to understand the components within the #appliance, their flamability and heat transfer properties.

In their presentation given at the MAIAAI conference, the experts from Genesis Forensics covered these topics in greater detail and demonstrated real-time testing in a burn cell with the use of product exemplars.

As an industry-leading expert in clothes dryers and other appliance fires, Michael Stoddard demonstrated the testing of fire growth and spread within an exemplar appliance, discussing potential design defects involving fire containment.

In light of the recent #airfryerrecalls, Electrical Professional Engineer Jeremiah Pratt utilized an exemplar air fryer on a range top in the burn cell to show fire progression, melting and post-fire patterns.

Appliance fires are discussed in #NFPA921 Chapter 25. This chapter concentrates on appliances as ignition sources for fires and covers topics such as determining the origin, documentation, fire patterns, components, scene reconstruction, electrical appliances as ignition sources, appliance housing materials, switches, heating elements, common residential appliances such as: ranges, coffee makers, toasters, dishwashers, microwaves, space heaters, clothes dryers (etc.) and touches on the use of exemplars for testing purposes. Other chapters of NFPA 921 relevant to appliance fires and failures include:

• Chapter 6 (Fire Effects and Fire Patterns)

• Chapter 9 (Electricity and Fire)

• Chapter 10 (Building Fuel Gas Systems)

• Chapter 18 (Origin Determination)

• Chapter 19 (Fire Cause Determination)

Participants in this 3-day seminar received continuing education credit from the International Association of Arson Investigators. The training included a didactic portion, field training exercises and case studies.