Incendiary Fire Analysis and Investigation

Running Head : Incendiary fire analysis and investigation

Name

Course

University

Tutor

Date

Incendiary fire analysis and investigation

Introduction

Incendiary fire is defined by the law as fire that is caused by a person who deliberately and maliciously sets it on to a building or any other property . The person is guilty of the crime of arson . He is an arsonist and the crime is punishable by the law . Fire incendiary , time analysis and investigation is therefore done to determine if the fire case was either deliberately set

or it was just an accidental fire (David R . R John J . O 1997

In the past , most of the fire cases were investigated by traditional methodology of fire investigation . This method was not sufficient enough because it did not put down the guidelines to be used in the fire investigation . Fire being one of the difficult cases to be investigated , needs to have a set guidelines on how to perform the investigation because unlike all other criminal cases , fire destroys all the evidence with it hence it has to be investigated thoroughly (David R . R John J . O 1997

For instance in the US the law states that if there is a case on fire the insurers of the property must carry out investigation on the cause of fire before it is denied or classified as a fire incendiary (Icove J , John D . 2004

The insurers must do this to establish if there is any fraudulent claims by the insured which are against the policies that were signed between the insurer and the insured . The insurer can contract with other criminal investigation departments to investigate on the same . However the contract should be done with carefulness because if the investigator is a private company they should be licensed to do so else the insurer will be held responsible (Icove J , John D . 2004

The law also states that the insurer and the insured can cooperate willingly to investigate the claim . They can hire a third party to do it on their behalf . The law also states that it is the duty of every citizen in any state to communicate information to the governing authorities on anything that is against the law this includes fire incendiary and arsonists (Icove J , John D . 2004

Therefore the investigators should spend enough time in the crime scene to establish the cause of the fire . This should be done with carefulness to avoid biasing ( HYPERLINK "http /www .interfire .org http /www .interfire .org

To help fire incendiary analysis and investigation the U .S . established the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA ) in 1992 ( HYPERLINK "http /www .nfpa .org " http /www .nfpa .org ) The NFPA 921 came up with the guidelines on how to investigate a fine incendiary

The procedures were laid down in a scientific manner and some of them were as follows

the fire scene was to be a no access zone to the public during the investigation

one should report any regulation breaches , ignorance to the...