For those wonder why I am posting these suggested changes, it is to have those involved in fire investigations understand what may affect them in the future. Also, it gives the reader the opportunity to participate in the process by contacting one of the committee members to express your opinion. This does help.

There is a suggested change to what explains an ignition source. It is just a couple of word. The person suggesting this change states the original wording of the presence of physical evidence for a remote ignition source led one to believe evidence of such never exists. There will always be a potential for latent evidence of such to actually exist and be discovered.

19.1.3 Ignition Source.
The ignition source will be at or near the point of origin at the time of ignition, although in some circumstances, such as the ignition of flammable vapors or in circumstances involving remote ignition, such as from convection or radiation, the two may not appear to coincide. Sometimes the source of ignition will remain at the point of origin in recognizable form, whereas other times the ignition source may be altered, destroyed, consumed, moved, or removed. Nevertheless, the ignition source should be identified in order to determine the fire cause. However, in instances involving remote ignition, there will often be no physical evidence of an ignition source at a hypothetical point of fire origin (see 5.9.2.2). In instances such as these, the source of ignition and ignition sequence can be hypothesized based on other data.

Jim Mazerat
Forensic Investigations Group