and some big names post their hard-earned wisdom here.
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Here they use biofuel gel (methanol-based); had a recent fatal fire involving the stuff. Problem is that it burns with a faint blue colour that is often not visible in daylight. Attempts to refuel from a gallon container (in my case; half-full) caused the vapour therefrom to be ignited, flash back and blow the remainder of the gel contents onto the victim. Flashpoint of Methanol is unfortunately
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

What a bummer! 30 years fighting for your innocence, only to die 6 months after release. Cause of death?
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Once had fire in a furniture store, with a sizeable hole burnt all the way through through the steel springs of a stack of burnt-out mattresses; was a thermite device (which I confirmed by snipping off pieces of the molten springs and taking them to a SEM where I confirmed aluminium in the molten droplets).
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Great news; some 30 years late...
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

" The 921 TC can obviously accept whatever code changes they want, but the courts have already accepted it as Standard of Care and Authoritative Treatise. NF" Only in the USA...
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Yeah Fire; bullsh*t baffles brains; time to put those patches on your jacket and decals on your van! Not a fire scene where I don't lose or forget something; pens, shovels, keys etc.; hate to loose an iPad...
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Plastic clipboard with a cheap brown-cover notepad and a clutch of coloured pens; never needs recharging, takes falls better than an ipad (and water as poorly), and cheap to replace when I misplace it. The rest I can do on my mobile phone (safe in a cover and handily on hand in my jacket pocket, keeping my hands free for the real work), which acts as a search engine, calculator, GPS, back-up
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Port Elizabeth; about 500 miles East of the Mother City
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Thank ypu Mr Carpenter Difficult enough to find a lad here to do the Iodine-value test, let alone the Mackay testing...
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Thanx Mr Lentini, always a wealth of information and insight. See your link has an academic article by Eric Stauffer, who was the bloke I shared the tent with! - Small world
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Title of a talk John Lentini allegedly gave; although I don’t know what he had to say about it. Got a fire in a potato-crisps factory where it is suspected oil-soiled potato-crisp remains spontaneously ignited; my principal says it’s a cut- & dry case (excuse the pun), but I’d like some scientific data supporting this hypothesis. Problem is that I can’t get a Spec. Sheet/MSDS of the frying
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Excellent, John; thanx for sharing!
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Company I do work for is considering buying electronic hydrocarbon sniffers. When in State Forensics some two decades ago, I looked into this; after I delved through all the marketing hype, I concluded that it was a more-expensive & less-sensitive/-specific alternative to a Fire K9. But that was two decades ago; any tech breakthroughs in this field since then?
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Hi Jim, quite a tale. FI's are not PI's or detectives; we should just to Origin & -Cause (like pathologists do Cause Of Death), and leave the investigative side of it to those with a horse in the race. Too many FI's wanna play sheriff...
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

That's why you are the one and only Lentini
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Had a case last week with a fire starting in a livingroom. Usual suspects : socket outlet behind a couch with a powerstrip supplying a sound system (on Standby) and mobile phone left on charge etc. Joker in the pack was a homemade decorative candleholder hung above the couch; lady had used it for the first time, lighting a standard candle in it about 5pm leaving it burning upon going to b
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Yeah, and cigarettes don't cause fire either... Remember, us FI's get to see the exceptions to the rule. If only one in a million make-ABC model-XYZ mobile phones catch fire and you sell 100 million of them, that's a hundred fires.
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Fire definitely started in the kid's bedroom; police allege due to a radiant electric heater known to be left on at the foot of the bed (suspect a pillow/duvet was knocked down onto it). Five fatalities, all found trapped in the lounge (house was like Fort Knox); sole survivor pulled from a bathroom by a neighbour (who cut it's burglarproofing with a angle grinder). Whole deb
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Sorry that gypsum ceiling should be probably 1/4" or 1/3"-inch (probably not X-rated)
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Recently experienced issues posting/replying on this forum; forum says I need to be logged in to do so (even when I am). I've tried logging out, which it doesn't then do either... Am I alone in this glitch?
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Fire in a single-storey brick-&-mortar house (tile roof on timber), with allegedly a gypsum-board ceiling (probably 1/4" or 1/8"-inch). Fire was almost a decade ago, and I've only been recently called in to contest a fire chief's contention that it must have been accelerated since flashover (12'x14'-bedroom, double-bed) went to flashover in <10 minutes
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Got a fire involving a double bed in a 12' x 14' bedroom with gypsum-board ceilings (either 1/4" or 1/3", attached to 1.4" x 1.4" timber brandering); debate hinges (amongst others) about how quickly ceiling would give (room went to flashover). Many unknown variables, but any hard data you can refer me to?
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Must admit, I haven't looked into the science behind mixing of chemical components (e.g. partial pressures, relative densities etc.), but wonder about the compounds involved; in liquids oil & water will separate into distinct layers due to different densities/polarities, but water & ethanol will mix despite having different densities. As for gasoline, it's a mix of hundred
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

What was the fire's fuel load then (if not pot contents)? timber countertop, nearby -cupboards? I've personally never encountered such (the Al-pot bases usually survive, the sides sometimes erode away), but would imagine (never having tried this at home) that an oil fire in an Al-pot would melt the sides, not the base; as long as there is oil burning in a pot, the base shouldn�
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

The Race is on : Ignition vs Extinction I'm rooting for you, Jim!
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Guess no one wants to run the experiment for any number of years, therefore only incidental cases? Perhaps when Jim retires he can set it up in his basement, with a webcam for Doug
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

A bit like trying to prove ignition of furnishings by cigarettes' butt; nigh impossible to replicate, but we have all encountered such such cases in practice. Fire investigators often deal with the exceptions to the rule. Had two such cases this year; one involving the auto-ignition (with steam) of polybuteen-soiled lagging, the other involving a electric discharge machine ignition t
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

Here's a DropBox-link to some of Babrauskas' articles on wood : Perhaps more value to be gained tracking the source articles he references.
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations

You talking about Babrauskas' ‘Pyrophoric Carbon’? - you will be burnt at the stake for heresy! I ran into the same blank space trying to suss out chimney-/flue pipe fire here. For a material so prevalent in the construction industry for many centuries now, there seems remarkably little research done on timber's ignition properties. Another local FI and I noticed a tendency amongst timbe
Forum: Fire/Arson Investigations