Vehicle Fire Pattern Recognition

As the Training coordinator for Massachusetts Distric 7 Fire Investigation Unit, Jeremiah Pratt focused this months discussion on recognizing fire patterns and identifying a compartment or origin of fire in vehicles. For the public FIU, it is important to be able to recognize the difference in accidental and arson situations. Many vehicle arson cases involve a fire in the passanger compartment versus the cargo compartment (i.e truck bed) due to the lack of inherent ignition sources and first fuels within the cargo compartment.

As discussed in NFPA 921, the first step is the idenitification of the area of origin of the vehicle: the exterior, engine compartment, passanger compartments or interior, cargo compartment, or underbody/underchassis.

An analysis of the windshield and fire patterns are useful in determining the compartment of origin. IN many cases, looking for a ripple-like pattern and following the ripples back to the center point can also aid in identifying the origin.

The FIU team members were asked to review NFPA 921 Section 26.8 Motor Vehicle Examinations and were given a variety of photos to review and make their own origin determination.

* Photo credit NAFI CVFI Training Course