ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how errors in fire investigations affect the lives of individuals after a fire. It is hoped that the presentation of a listing of the sources of error in fire investigations will help readers avoid making the errors, or at least recognize the errors when they are reviewing an investigator's work product. The fire investigator, who takes his time, familiarizes him with the building, looks at everything before moving anything, and carefully documents the initial conditions is less likely to overlook a critical piece of data. Misinterpreting critical data commonly results from a failure to understand the behavior of fire, but it can also result from poor communication, another category of error. The misinterpretation of irrelevant data remains one of the most common errors in fire investigation. Ignoring or discarding inconsistent data is one of the most insidious of errors and a classic symptom of a closed mind.
