"I am not against having a chapter that addresses incendiary devices. I do believe this information needs to be available to the investigator. May I suggest changing the title from Incendiary to Incendiary Devices."

The subject of the chapter is incendiary fires. While incendiary devices can be part fo the evidence used to formulate a valid incendiary fire hypothesis, they are not the only evidence. Thus, a change in title does not seem to accurately characterize the content of the chapter.

The chapter is needed if you are determining the fire to be either accidental or incendiary. If you are removing this responsibility from the fire investigators who are following NFPA 921, then it is irrelevant because it deals with physical evidence of intent for the initiation of an incendiary fire.

So, it is acknowledged that someone has to make a determination of an incendiary fire. You have now removed that responsibility from the fire investigation community. So who now has the responsibility for this determination? The public sector fire investigator? Will he/she investigate all fires to see if they are accidental or incendiary?

Douglas J. Carpenter, MScFPE, CFEI, PE, FSFPE
Vice President & Principal Engineer
Combustion Science & Engineering, Inc.
8940 Old Annapolis Road, Suite L
Columbia, MD 21045
(410) 884-3266
(410) 884-3267 (fax)
www.csefire.com