I just read an article in the Fire & Arson titled, “How the proposed changes to NFPA 921 may impact your courtroom testimony”. Where I may not agree with the findings in the article, it did call into question the Fire Investigation Committee’s reasoning and a potential effect on public fire investigators. The area being questioned was the removal of the chapter in NFPA 921 that addressed classification of fire causes.

There were a number of areas of concern outlined in the article. These were the public fire investigator’s inability to perform his job function in the gathering of data to be used by the public, the public fire investigator’s inability to give a classification in court and the lack of confusion of the judge or jury due to there being not classification given during the testimony. These may be legitimate concerns if in fact these conditions come to exist because of the removal of the classification chapter.

My first question would the changes made to NFPA 921 restrict the public fire investigator from giving his opinion as to the classification. Would the courts accept his testimony on this topic without classifications being in NFPA 921. It was suggested in the article that because it was not in NFPA 921 then it is not science based so that should in itself restrict the testimony. I will agree classification is not science based but it is the result of the ponderance of the evidence. Last I here that was an acceptable methodology. I can see not clear reason stopping the public investigator from giving a classification based on the removal of the chapter.

The next question does this hamper the public interest in collecting data as to the classification of fires within their community. The article would lead one to believe that the majority of the data addressing the classification of fire causes in the public sector is coming from public fire investigators. Using this as a starting point I first had to determine where were these classifications being recorded and who was doing the recording. In doing some research I found that the data being used by the NFPA and USFA in coming from the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NIFRS). The next question was who was doing the majority of the classifications for this system. I check the number of fires being reported and compared that figure to the number of investigations conducted by that departments investigation unit. Surprisingly, I found that less than 25% of the fire being reported by these department were being investigated by a public fire investigator. With the evidence that the public investigator in not the one responsible for the majority of the classification data being collect there is nothing to indicate there will be a reduction in the data collected by the fire service.

If the public fire investigator chooses not to classify the cause of the fire but to just testify as to what was the source of ignition, what was the first fuel ignited and how the two were brought together does that hinder the judge or jury from reaching a conclusion. Motive and intent is part of the story in a criminal trial but does this information need to come from the person that identified the fire cause? Yes, the public fire investigator can do both but does he need to do both himself for the case to be successful.

This is all from my prospective and I am sure there are different opinions on this subject. As to the article, the exchange of opinions is never bad. Just food for thought on this topic.

Jim Mazerat
Forensic Investigations Group