I'm interested in colleague's thoughts, so please get in touch
I will share what I can after the trial.
Mike
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Aerosol can explosions
Currently working on a court report relating to the size and duration of a fireball resulting from an exploding aerosol can. The can was in a bin in a changing room so was probably 'empty' or nearly empty. There would still have been some residual flammable product in the can. Most of the literature relates to larger LPG releases and work with full aerosols.
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Chinese Lanterns
Dear All
I wonder if anybody has come across any fires where the supposed cause was the possibility of a Chinese lantern. This happened recently at a farm fire in my own service and was only identified as the possible cause due to an eagle-eyed witness.
More recently I was giving a Fire Safety talk to a group of farmers from the National Farmers Union and I was asked the question if the Fire Service supported calls from some insurance companies to have Chinese lanterns banned in the UK. I have to admit that I wasn't sure of the position of national bodies such as CFOA, but suggested that tighter controls and greater awareness of the risks were certainly required.
The difficulty, as I see it, for Fire Investigation Officers, is the possibility of a Chinese lantern is unlikely to feature highly on the list of possible causes and the release of such a lantern is most likely to be remote from where a fire started. I would be interested to know the likelihood of a Chinese lantern descending to the ground when it is still lit as my understanding is they would remain airborne until they have self-extinguished, however, that does not necessarily seem to be the case. Hopefully one for further discussion.
All the best
Alan
I wonder if anybody has come across any fires where the supposed cause was the possibility of a Chinese lantern. This happened recently at a farm fire in my own service and was only identified as the possible cause due to an eagle-eyed witness.
More recently I was giving a Fire Safety talk to a group of farmers from the National Farmers Union and I was asked the question if the Fire Service supported calls from some insurance companies to have Chinese lanterns banned in the UK. I have to admit that I wasn't sure of the position of national bodies such as CFOA, but suggested that tighter controls and greater awareness of the risks were certainly required.
The difficulty, as I see it, for Fire Investigation Officers, is the possibility of a Chinese lantern is unlikely to feature highly on the list of possible causes and the release of such a lantern is most likely to be remote from where a fire started. I would be interested to know the likelihood of a Chinese lantern descending to the ground when it is still lit as my understanding is they would remain airborne until they have self-extinguished, however, that does not necessarily seem to be the case. Hopefully one for further discussion.
All the best
Alan
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Tealight candles
As many of you will be aware I have been taking a keen interest in tealights for many many years. Since my initial report in 1999 and subsequent studies I have endeavoured to monitor and drive the subject through publicity and shear doggedness. I believe I am at last in a position to be able to say that the work has been a success.
There are fewer incidents and deaths as a direct result of tealights burning abnormally and the recalls that have arisen are often as a result of the greater awareness of the tealight issue. There are also electric tealights now available!
The basic product, however, is the same and the DTI failed to initiate any effective safety strategy via retailers so how was the campaign a success?
CONTROLLED, DRIVEN AND TARGETED PUBLICITY:
- Fire services and trading standards accross the UK were well informed and included the issue in their own safety initiatives.
- The media were used to increase public awareness.
- TV makeover programmes and lifestyle magazines were mailed directly when tealights were portrayed dangerously.
- The advertising standards authority were informed and issued conditions for portrayal of tealights.
- Coroners were informed.
- Fire investigators were informed.
I am now in a position, I hope, to let the subject go. It will often be impossible to improve fire safety by design or regulation. When that is the case then shear dogged determination is the only option. I always carry the doctrine in my head "If I do nothing with the knowledge I have and somebody dies. What would any Coroner ask of me?".
There are fewer incidents and deaths as a direct result of tealights burning abnormally and the recalls that have arisen are often as a result of the greater awareness of the tealight issue. There are also electric tealights now available!
The basic product, however, is the same and the DTI failed to initiate any effective safety strategy via retailers so how was the campaign a success?
CONTROLLED, DRIVEN AND TARGETED PUBLICITY:
- Fire services and trading standards accross the UK were well informed and included the issue in their own safety initiatives.
- The media were used to increase public awareness.
- TV makeover programmes and lifestyle magazines were mailed directly when tealights were portrayed dangerously.
- The advertising standards authority were informed and issued conditions for portrayal of tealights.
- Coroners were informed.
- Fire investigators were informed.
I am now in a position, I hope, to let the subject go. It will often be impossible to improve fire safety by design or regulation. When that is the case then shear dogged determination is the only option. I always carry the doctrine in my head "If I do nothing with the knowledge I have and somebody dies. What would any Coroner ask of me?".
IFE Forum and FI Blog
I have just had a quick look at the IFE forum and it is looking very sad indeed. Few entries at all this year and hardly any post seems to get any reply. Our own SIG has also been quiet. It's not a problem. We are all volunteers and have other matters to attend to but I would like to invite all to consider what pro-active measures we could take to reach a wider audience within IFE.
I would like to start with a monthly series of debate and advice on this blog site. The chosen subject will be posted onto the IFE forum and participants invited to this blog to enter the debate. Perhaps salient points can be summarised in our Newsletter. Please offer any subject or topic that you would like to see some discussion of and I will post it (please include a paragraph or information that will act as a springboard for the debate). If there is sufficient interest and activity I will publish the feature more widely.
My suggestions:
FI publications
Practical FI photography
Hand tools
On-site testing
Inter-agency working - Practicalities
I would like to start with a monthly series of debate and advice on this blog site. The chosen subject will be posted onto the IFE forum and participants invited to this blog to enter the debate. Perhaps salient points can be summarised in our Newsletter. Please offer any subject or topic that you would like to see some discussion of and I will post it (please include a paragraph or information that will act as a springboard for the debate). If there is sufficient interest and activity I will publish the feature more widely.
My suggestions:
FI publications
Practical FI photography
Hand tools
On-site testing
Inter-agency working - Practicalities
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Destroying the evidence...
The court case I sat through earlier this month is now reaching a conclusion. It has been extremely interesting as it involves a double killing and the victims’ bodies were destroyed in a very efficient manner in what is perhaps best described as a ‘homemade’ crematorium. The Bundeskriminalamt’s Forensic Experts have been involved by the defence team as the court had been advised that it was not possible to destroy a body, let alone two, in the manner described. However, the BKA team has shown that it is possible since the key element is not, as the original expert asserted, the temperatures generated or the method, but the combination of temperature and duration.
The court had a further difficulty in that the original investigation did not attempt to reconstruct the cremation equipment which the accused had, by that time, destroyed. Nor did they examine fully the information provided. Some ‘semantics’ were also involved which further clouded the issue, the accused stating that “the bodies were totally destroyed.” The use of the word “totally” was seized upon by the original expert as being “impossible”, but it is now accepted that this interpretation is far too narrow, since, to a layman, “totally destroyed” means being unable to recognise anything in the debris that he/she could identify as human.
So, how was this done?
The accused provided a detailed description of what he had done and how. When this methodology was examined fully and the implications studied and heat fluxes calculated it was found that the accused could well have destroyed the bodies sufficiently for the remains to be unrecognisable. His first step was to create a furnace.
To do this he cut the top off a small LPG ‘Bullet’ tank. This normally stands about 1.7 meters in height and has a diameter of 1.5 meters with a length of around 4 metres. Cutting the top off the tank reduced the height to 1.4 metres, allowing the fire bed to be fed from above. Slots approximately 100mm in length and 40mm in width were cut around the lower part of the tank, roughly 3-400 mm from the bottom. A fire was made inside the tank using wooden pallets and sustained until there was a deep bed of coals. More timber was then added to this and the first body, now wrapped in a poly-butylene “Butyl Rubber” pool lining sheet and placed inside a purpose made wooden ‘coffin’ was suspended over the top opening in the tank (This was 1 metre in width and the ‘coffin 900mm) and the fire using a mobile hoist. The Polypropylene strops melted and allowed the box to drop into the tank where the butyl sheet liquefied and promoted the rapid burning of the box.
Once the first box had begun to burn the second box was placed on top of it and caused the first to collapse, lowering the second completely into the tank.
Over the next eighteen hours the accused continued to stoke the fire, feeding in broken pallets from the top. This was one of the ‘issues’ the court had with the testimony since they believed the top would be too high for the accused to do this or to see into the tank unless he stood above the tank on an adjoining wall. However, this is where the original investigation was misleading. No one had drawn a scale drawing from the accused’s and other witnesses accounts. Once the BKA drawing was presented, complete with a to scale human figure, it immediately became obvious that not only was it possible to feed the fire as described, but to see into the tank without undue exposure to the heat or flames.
For me this underscored the need for investigators to make accurate scale drawings of anything they may need to look at in more detail or to verify witness descriptions. It certainly rocked the court’s perception and changed the opinion of the bench and assessors completely.
The calculations produced for the heat generated and output of a fire in these conditions were extremely complex, but showed that the burning pallet material would have produced sufficient heat to reduce a body and almost all the major bones to ash. When combined with the Butyl Rubber sheeting and the body’s own fatty tissues, the heat generated over the period of time given (18 hours) would have reduced the remains to fragments unrecognisable by any lay person. The BKA expert advised the court, and was supported in this by the Pathologist, that any larger pieces remaining would be sufficiently friable to be reduced to powder very simply either by handling or by the application of an acetylene torch on the premises. The accused’s reaction to this was sufficient to confirm suspicions that this is indeed what happened and he confirmed that verbally to the open court!
The calculations for radiant heat from the tank also confirmed that anyone ‘feeding the fire’ would be able to do so with only slight heat discomfort at a distance no more than 500 mm from the tank wall.
One of the many things that has caused a problem with this case is the fact that, though the accused showed the police where he had scattered the remains in a field, no attempt was made at the time to collect any samples from it or from the area where the tank had stood. Had this been done, the BKS team could have analysed it using X-Ray diffraction, a technique that reveals the crystalline structures off a variety of chemicals and would have shown up the Calcium Phosphates unique to human bones…
Sitting in on this case has been a fascinating learning experience, not least for the scientific analysis of the process, but for the identification of the many deficiencies in the original investigation. The court is to sit again on the 1st of August to hear a statement by a co-accused and the judgement will follow, I suspect, within days of that. It certainly bears out, for me, the vital necessity for fire investigators to understand the recording, recreation and evidence examination techniques as well as the fire!
Hopefully, at some point I will be able to post the drawings and some of the calculations on this site – but for the moment this is verboten!
The court had a further difficulty in that the original investigation did not attempt to reconstruct the cremation equipment which the accused had, by that time, destroyed. Nor did they examine fully the information provided. Some ‘semantics’ were also involved which further clouded the issue, the accused stating that “the bodies were totally destroyed.” The use of the word “totally” was seized upon by the original expert as being “impossible”, but it is now accepted that this interpretation is far too narrow, since, to a layman, “totally destroyed” means being unable to recognise anything in the debris that he/she could identify as human.
So, how was this done?
The accused provided a detailed description of what he had done and how. When this methodology was examined fully and the implications studied and heat fluxes calculated it was found that the accused could well have destroyed the bodies sufficiently for the remains to be unrecognisable. His first step was to create a furnace.
To do this he cut the top off a small LPG ‘Bullet’ tank. This normally stands about 1.7 meters in height and has a diameter of 1.5 meters with a length of around 4 metres. Cutting the top off the tank reduced the height to 1.4 metres, allowing the fire bed to be fed from above. Slots approximately 100mm in length and 40mm in width were cut around the lower part of the tank, roughly 3-400 mm from the bottom. A fire was made inside the tank using wooden pallets and sustained until there was a deep bed of coals. More timber was then added to this and the first body, now wrapped in a poly-butylene “Butyl Rubber” pool lining sheet and placed inside a purpose made wooden ‘coffin’ was suspended over the top opening in the tank (This was 1 metre in width and the ‘coffin 900mm) and the fire using a mobile hoist. The Polypropylene strops melted and allowed the box to drop into the tank where the butyl sheet liquefied and promoted the rapid burning of the box.
Once the first box had begun to burn the second box was placed on top of it and caused the first to collapse, lowering the second completely into the tank.
Over the next eighteen hours the accused continued to stoke the fire, feeding in broken pallets from the top. This was one of the ‘issues’ the court had with the testimony since they believed the top would be too high for the accused to do this or to see into the tank unless he stood above the tank on an adjoining wall. However, this is where the original investigation was misleading. No one had drawn a scale drawing from the accused’s and other witnesses accounts. Once the BKA drawing was presented, complete with a to scale human figure, it immediately became obvious that not only was it possible to feed the fire as described, but to see into the tank without undue exposure to the heat or flames.
For me this underscored the need for investigators to make accurate scale drawings of anything they may need to look at in more detail or to verify witness descriptions. It certainly rocked the court’s perception and changed the opinion of the bench and assessors completely.
The calculations produced for the heat generated and output of a fire in these conditions were extremely complex, but showed that the burning pallet material would have produced sufficient heat to reduce a body and almost all the major bones to ash. When combined with the Butyl Rubber sheeting and the body’s own fatty tissues, the heat generated over the period of time given (18 hours) would have reduced the remains to fragments unrecognisable by any lay person. The BKA expert advised the court, and was supported in this by the Pathologist, that any larger pieces remaining would be sufficiently friable to be reduced to powder very simply either by handling or by the application of an acetylene torch on the premises. The accused’s reaction to this was sufficient to confirm suspicions that this is indeed what happened and he confirmed that verbally to the open court!
The calculations for radiant heat from the tank also confirmed that anyone ‘feeding the fire’ would be able to do so with only slight heat discomfort at a distance no more than 500 mm from the tank wall.
One of the many things that has caused a problem with this case is the fact that, though the accused showed the police where he had scattered the remains in a field, no attempt was made at the time to collect any samples from it or from the area where the tank had stood. Had this been done, the BKS team could have analysed it using X-Ray diffraction, a technique that reveals the crystalline structures off a variety of chemicals and would have shown up the Calcium Phosphates unique to human bones…
Sitting in on this case has been a fascinating learning experience, not least for the scientific analysis of the process, but for the identification of the many deficiencies in the original investigation. The court is to sit again on the 1st of August to hear a statement by a co-accused and the judgement will follow, I suspect, within days of that. It certainly bears out, for me, the vital necessity for fire investigators to understand the recording, recreation and evidence examination techniques as well as the fire!
Hopefully, at some point I will be able to post the drawings and some of the calculations on this site – but for the moment this is verboten!
Friday, 2 July 2010
Court procedure; German style
I thought readers might be interested in a brief review of the court case I attended last week. I hasten to add, as a spectator, not in any "official" capacity.
The case is an interesting one for a number of reasons. The accused is charged with two counts of manslaughter and disposed of the bodies by burning them in a very interesting manner. This is the reason I attended the trial and I will give more details when I am able to do so.
The German Courts have no Jury, the bench has five members, with a Presiding Judge, two Assessors and two lay members drawn from the electoral rolls by ballot in much the same manner as the UK's Jury Selection process. One difference, however, is the fact that potential lay members are screened to ensure they are qualified to understand the complexities of the case. Seated on either side of the court, with the defence at a level lower than the bench, are the Prosecutor on the Right of the Bench and the Defence facing him on the left. A major difference with a UK Court is the presence on the Prosecution's side of a Legal Rep and the victim's family representative, with another Legal Rep on the Defence side representing the accused's family! Cross-examination is generally led, as in the UK system, by the Prosecution, followed by the Defence, but then the other two parties are also allowed to examine the witness as are the three judges.
On the day I was present the evidence was being given by a Pathologist and a representative of the Bundeskriminalamt's Forensic Science Institute's Fire Investigation Unit and the questions all revolved around the method of destroying a body by fire. Watching the cross examination and listening to the technical answers proved very interesting indeed. Video of some experiments was shown, powerpoint was used, copies of technical papers circulated and examined and the court even adjourned to read a rather longer and more complicated one submitted by the FIO.
In the end the court adjourned, but issued a recall for the experts for later this month to answer specific questions raised in the evidence and which will require further research and calculation.
One thing was clearly evident throughout, bias is very difficult to sustain in this environment since, with four legal teams present and the bench any attempt at bias is quickly revealed. Unlike the "Adversarial" approach in the UK which does teend to sway a jury, there is a much calmer and more inquisitorial approach in this system. That said, don't try to evade a question or deliver a half answer. The Judges are very quick to demand a proper response and to dismiss anything which is inappropriate.
So how do the "Lay" members of the bench function?
They are also permitted to ask for explanations, though they usually do so through one of the Judges. Their main function is to listen, to watch and to assist the Judge in reaching a conclusion - and obviously, to ensure that conclusion has been reached in a balanced and even handed manner.
Of all the courts I have attended, this one struck me as being very fair in its deliberations (Interestingly the BKA witness and the Pathologist were called by the Defence Team.) and to contain some checks and balances not always present in a jury system. Giving evidence in this style of court may be slightly more 'relaxed' but is still no place for ill-informed or unscientific witnesses, the least suspicion of unqualified or unquantifiable answers or of unsubstantiated evidence is likely to bring down the wrath of the bench on the witness and get the evidence challenged and dismissed.
If you're lucky, you'll escape with a caution not to waste the courts time...
Having watched this court at work, I seriously recommend to everyone that time spent in the public gallery of a range of different courts and legal systems will be time very well spent indeed.
The case is an interesting one for a number of reasons. The accused is charged with two counts of manslaughter and disposed of the bodies by burning them in a very interesting manner. This is the reason I attended the trial and I will give more details when I am able to do so.
The German Courts have no Jury, the bench has five members, with a Presiding Judge, two Assessors and two lay members drawn from the electoral rolls by ballot in much the same manner as the UK's Jury Selection process. One difference, however, is the fact that potential lay members are screened to ensure they are qualified to understand the complexities of the case. Seated on either side of the court, with the defence at a level lower than the bench, are the Prosecutor on the Right of the Bench and the Defence facing him on the left. A major difference with a UK Court is the presence on the Prosecution's side of a Legal Rep and the victim's family representative, with another Legal Rep on the Defence side representing the accused's family! Cross-examination is generally led, as in the UK system, by the Prosecution, followed by the Defence, but then the other two parties are also allowed to examine the witness as are the three judges.
On the day I was present the evidence was being given by a Pathologist and a representative of the Bundeskriminalamt's Forensic Science Institute's Fire Investigation Unit and the questions all revolved around the method of destroying a body by fire. Watching the cross examination and listening to the technical answers proved very interesting indeed. Video of some experiments was shown, powerpoint was used, copies of technical papers circulated and examined and the court even adjourned to read a rather longer and more complicated one submitted by the FIO.
In the end the court adjourned, but issued a recall for the experts for later this month to answer specific questions raised in the evidence and which will require further research and calculation.
One thing was clearly evident throughout, bias is very difficult to sustain in this environment since, with four legal teams present and the bench any attempt at bias is quickly revealed. Unlike the "Adversarial" approach in the UK which does teend to sway a jury, there is a much calmer and more inquisitorial approach in this system. That said, don't try to evade a question or deliver a half answer. The Judges are very quick to demand a proper response and to dismiss anything which is inappropriate.
So how do the "Lay" members of the bench function?
They are also permitted to ask for explanations, though they usually do so through one of the Judges. Their main function is to listen, to watch and to assist the Judge in reaching a conclusion - and obviously, to ensure that conclusion has been reached in a balanced and even handed manner.
Of all the courts I have attended, this one struck me as being very fair in its deliberations (Interestingly the BKA witness and the Pathologist were called by the Defence Team.) and to contain some checks and balances not always present in a jury system. Giving evidence in this style of court may be slightly more 'relaxed' but is still no place for ill-informed or unscientific witnesses, the least suspicion of unqualified or unquantifiable answers or of unsubstantiated evidence is likely to bring down the wrath of the bench on the witness and get the evidence challenged and dismissed.
If you're lucky, you'll escape with a caution not to waste the courts time...
Having watched this court at work, I seriously recommend to everyone that time spent in the public gallery of a range of different courts and legal systems will be time very well spent indeed.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Investigation of major fires
Please see link in new page opposite. Any suggestions or contributions to this new group will be very welcome and will be passed on.
The background is that major fire investigation is well removed from level 2 and 3 and that we appear to be learning on our feet as and when major incidents occur. The group will seek to find common ground or procedure that any Police or Fire Authority can use as a template.
The background is that major fire investigation is well removed from level 2 and 3 and that we appear to be learning on our feet as and when major incidents occur. The group will seek to find common ground or procedure that any Police or Fire Authority can use as a template.
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