Dan M is by far the best contact on this subject. He can provide real world, unbias information. You can contact him directly at madrzy@nist.gov

Also be aware that the National Fire Academy has a fairly new 2 week class entitled Fire Dynamics/Fire Modeling. This is a excellent course - very challenging. Dan was one of the major developers of this course and regularly participates in teaching.

With all due respect to John, I will take exception to his comment about fire safety v. fire investigation. Fire dynamics and thus the ability to model a specific event are the same regardless of why the model is used.

The NFA class was officially developed in the fire investigation area, but students in the fire prevention technical field are also eligible to attend the same course for this precise reason.

As with any computer program it can be misused and manipulated by those with less than honorable intentions.

Our firm recently experienced such an event in a civil case and I know that Dan can give you additional information about this problem.

James G. Munger, PhD, FIFireE, CFPS
www.qdotengineering.com
W3NFA