Fire marshal

The fire cause analysis helps to uncover the causes and the sequence of fires.

Definition of Terms

The fire cause analysis is a forensic activity that takes place after a fire in fire places and consists of the sighting, documentation, backup and evaluation of where to place marks on a scientific basis. At issue here is the precise explanation of an actual past event from the traces left by this event. The activity thus has a certain similarity to the work of an archaeologist.

Distinction between

The fire cause analysis is to separate the tasks of fire prevention, fire fighting and fire damage assessment.

Specialists for preventive fire protection, fire fighting (fire ) or fire damage assessment are not automatically experts for fire cause determination, just as an expert in fire cause determination can not automatically perform fire safety plans, fire inspections and fire safety inspections. A Fire Marshal is also not automatically qualify for the fire service. The fire damage assessment is allocated to the areas of valuation, and fire damage restoration. The various activities engaged in while all the phenomenon of fire, yet the respective centers of gravity are so far apart that a professional activity does not necessarily lead to any of the areas to sufficient knowledge to other areas of activity.

Jurisdiction

The responsibility for fire cause analysis is first to the prosecutor local competent to determine whether a criminal offense, so there is arson or not. The prosecutors make use of this, the forces of the police, Criminal Investigation, Forensic Science, the departments of the state police, the department of the Federal or external experts. The finding of a technical or natural causes of fire is only the possible exclusion of arson and is so one of those criminally relevant causes apply concretely, not pursued by prosecutors / police.

Only after approval by the Public Prosecutor's Office to determine causes of fires for the field of civil law can be carried out in order to regulate the liability for damages. This involves issues such as insurance, penalties, recourse and / or product liability. The civil legal significance outweighs the criminal nature by far, because arson is only one ( small in number ) range of possible causes of fire.

Furthermore, the fire cause investigation, at least in major fire events, important to support preventive fire protection. If the occurrence of fire is known, this knowledge can be considered as necessary in regulations and norms.

Tasks

In order to identify the different causes of fire, the diverse images of a fire lane must be evaluated and secured. The most important task here is to determine the source of the fire. Here, the reconstruction of the original burn area origin plays an important role. Even the determination of the fire source is a challenging task that requires a lot of experience, impartiality and careful, prudent work with background knowledge.

If, at this early stage of the investigation to errors (eg due to lack of thoroughness or lack of knowledge of the investigator ), this ultimately lead to a false result.

If the fire is known, it must be screened for potential ignition sources and the corresponding fuel. Could the fire does not, or can not be determined with certainty, the entire primary fire origin area to be searched accordingly. Is the primary fire origin area no longer exists, because it is burned (example: wooden false ceiling ), the entire area below must be searched accordingly. Basically, then to examine all discovered in the relevant area equipment and technical facilities for possible defects and manipulations toward that would be as a fire starts may lead.

Could not be positively detected a cause of the fire, on the elimination or exclusion proceedings until February 2011, it was possible to detect these fire cause by all other possible causes have been ruled to fire on them. However, was the elimination method, the most commonly misused method, as it was often used when the fire could not be determined unequivocally. Here, however, the elimination procedure had inevitably fail because the object to be observed fire was too big then as a rule to exclude truly demonstrated all possible fire causes. For example, would after a house fire still all electrical wiring must have been completely available to rule out a technical defect alone on electric line network safely.

In principle, all relevant traces and information must be unprejudiced recorded and documented. Because of these tracks a hypothesis developed that is checked against the tracks and information obtained found. Contradicting traces or information of the hypothesis results from the fact that the hypothesis is false. There must then be looking for a new hypothesis. This is an iterative process because the trace and information retrieval and installation of the hypotheses in parallel. It must be taken to ensure that no traces or information are suppressed because they do not fit a hypothesis. It may happen also in no way that only traces are sought that fit a hypothesis made once, what would be a classic estimation error.

Legal Significance

Can, since the penalties for arson in the various forms in the German Penal Code of impunity ranging up to life imprisonment and dishes largely based on the investigation results of the Fire Marshal, the work of the Fire Marshal for the accused can have very far-reaching consequences. Measured against this, is to be placed on the work quality for fire cause determination, an extremely high standard.

In civil law, the work of the Fire Marshal is often decisive for whether insurance benefits are paid or not. It goes in many cases amounts of money that can be decisive for the existence of interested parties, so that a very high claim must be made to work goodness for fire cause determination here.

Training

A regulated education does not exist in Germany. For the examination for public appointed and sworn as an expert on fire causes the expert panel of the IHK Darmstadt is responsible.

Problems

Due to the under-staffing in the field of police, with personnel in the field of fire causes, which continues in the state criminal office, the quality of the test results due to the heavy workload often suffers. Sometimes the extent that the determination results of diligent scientific review can not withstand.

By not regulated in Germany training and classification of the experts in the Honorary Group 5 of JVEG that sets an hourly rate of 70 € for orders by the courts and the public sector since the introduction of this law in 2004, hardly found qualified experts for causes of fire who are ready for this hourly rate, which is well within the cost of an engineer to act. This affects mainly the prosecutors and criminal courts, since there is no possibility of an increase of the hourly rate. An interest of engineers to qualify for this task is therefore not given. As of February 2009 there are in Germany, only 28 publicly appointed and sworn expert for causes of fire. This corresponds to about 0.25 experts per country district court or prosecutor's office.

In obedience to be arising from this situation need through the public prosecutors and courts are therefore increasingly less qualified, sometimes also used completely unqualified experts, which significantly affects the quality of the fire investigation results.

Developments in the field of fire cause analysis

With the publication of NFPA 921 as of February 25, 2011 under this provision is the sole use of the elimination method to prove a cause of the fire is no longer professionally. Accordance with the principle that fire cause determinations must be made according to scientific methods, only positive, based on scientific principles findings of causes of fire are possible now. However, since the elimination process provides a hypothesis that is neither verifizer nor falsifiable and this contradicts the definition of science, the exclusive use of the process of elimination to determine a cause of the fire is not professionally.