Guys,
I attended a course last year that is available to any Fire Officer above Station Officer (Your Captain).
That course was an eye-opener to what is going on in the US.
Sure, I think the beef here is that Fire Investigators do not do their jobs properly, if at all, from some comments I've read.
There are a LOT of Fire-fighters here at ECN of various ranks, although I don't think that we have a Fire Chief here.
Who is it that makes the determination of the cause of a fire in the US?.
Is it the Fire Chief?, his deputy?.
Second to that question is what electrical experience do they have in determining that as a REAL cause of a fire.
I'm not looking to put a "cat amongst the pidgeons" here, but all I want is some discussion on this.
Go ahead folks.

In Maine we have State Fire Marshalls that determine cause. Fire Chiefs speculate or help in determination but I believe the state is responsible for the final determination

Unless there are clear indications of foul play, I doubt fire causes get more than a cursory glance.

Little more than, say, walking in the next day and thinking "Hmmm ... bedroom fire, ashtray, must have been smoking in bed."

We have at least three different types of folks who make "cause" determinations; it is not unusual for different 'causes' to be assessed. Unless there is some sort of litigation, the various opinions are never even compared, let alone resolved.

Some places have the "investigator" as a member of the police department. Others base him in the fire department. The two departments have very different attitudes as to their jobs, take entirely different approaches, and many 'professional' associations are split along those lines. Joseph Wambaugh looked at this in some detail in his book "Fire Lover," a biography of an expert investigator gone bad.

In short, the guy with a FD background is going to focus on the details of the fire, and what code issues there might be. The guy with a police background is going to focus on "was a crime committed?"

The third type is the guy from the insurance company. In the strictest sense, his interest is going to focus on whether or not there is a claim to be paid. In many cases, he is the only one who will make a serious effort to identify the "proximate cause."

Responding Fire Dept. personnel fill out a standard NFPA form for every call, which goes into the 'great database in the sky.' This is where the bulk of fire statistics come from. Yet, this form is, at best, based upon 'first impressions.' Later information quite often contradicts the opinion expressed on the form. As far as "electrical" causes are discussed, it is mainly a question of whether it was on the customer's or PoCo side of the meter .... and then, often seems to be checked off when no other cause is immediately apparent.

To be fair, responding Fire personnel have priorities far different from those of an investigator. The FD has absolutely no interest in preserving evidence or conducting an investigation.

Let's look at just one example .... Christmas tree fires. For decades, we've seen such fires blamed on 'too many lights.' Or, too many plugs in the power strips. Yet, when the TV show "Mythbusters" tried to re-create such a fire, the ONLY way they were able to get the dried out tree to ignite was with an arcing fault. They packed that tree with as many lights as possible, even had it giving off steam ... but no ignition until they added a spark. AFAIK, these guys are the only ones who looked at the 'tree fire' in any depth.

[This message has been edited by renosteinke (edited 01-24-2007).]

In My jurisdiction a fire is first attended by a fire prevention officer/investigator. This person is often not very well trained in investigation techniques but I digress. If they suspect the cause is electrical then they must call an Electrical Inspector usually my supervisor or me. If we agree it was electrical then it can be called an electrical fire. A Halogen light igniting the curtains is not an electrical fire. But a Baseboard heater installed upside down (so the overtemp does not work) that ignites bedding or a curtain is an electrical fire related to it's installation.
This report has on occasion been disputed by the insurance company who has an investigator (engineer) that has attributed fires to telco wiring with nothing to ignite except the wires itself. Anyone who thinks that correctly installed telco wires can self ignite probably should get their next diploma from the bathroom roll.

My point is there are very few qualified or even thorough enough people to determin the actual cause of a fire. We have had to go out of Province to get formal investigation training as the local fire commissioners office will not give us a seat in any of their rare courses. One positive point is that any indication of criminal activity or a fatal usually brings in a senior investigator that is day and night more qualified and thorough.

Fortunately I have a good working relationship with the FD. They are the ones that determine cause but, they do ask for my input and evaluation of the scene.
I understand fire fighting from being in the Navy, and electricity from seeing how it is installed and misused.
Fastest fire starter is an incandescent bulb next to almost anything that will melt or burn.
My favorate quote was from a fire chief in a nearby area that declared an electrical fire only to have the utility company tell him that the power had been disaconnected for three months. His response; "It would have been an electrical fire if the power had been turned on."
Alan--
Light too close to the curtains is listed as a fire...source of ignition....electrical.
NFPA forms don't have a box for stupid / foolish etc.

Most christmas tree fires in Austria are still caused by wax candles getting too close to branches or falling down. I once put (as an experiment) a small, really dry tree into a campfire... it was truly impressing how fast it blazed up!

My absolute favourite quote (which i read somewhere around here years ago) was: "The cause of the fire coul not be determined since the house was not wired for electricity."

This is the link from the Manitoba Office of the Fire Commissioner. It details how fires are investigated in Manitoba Canada. http://www.firecomm.gov.mb.ca/investigations.html

In Winnipeg (our capital city)all suspicious building fires are investigated by the joint Fire/Police arson task force with input from the fire commissioner's office to find the origin and press charges if required.

The Provincial Government owns the company that has the monopoly in Auto Insurance in Manitoba and they have one or two dedicated fire investigators on staff to investigate vehicle fires.

I am a captain with my local fire department and the township we are in has 6 full time fire inspectors and 3 part time. Most of their time is spent doing inspections and helping out with day time fire calls, all the departments are volunteer. If there is a house fire the director of fire prevention and the deputy director come out to do the inspection and determine the cause. If there is foul play suspected they will also call out the county sherrifs office arson team which brings out about five inspectors and an arson dog.

As an interesting aside, we had a house fire recently where the home owner said they had a Dell laptop with a possibly faulty battery so Dell flew out a team of investigators to do their own investigation. They did find a Dell laptop, which was not involved in the recall, on the opposite side of the house where the fire started...

[This message has been edited by JCooper (edited 01-13-2007).]

Over the past 25 years I have developed a good relationship with the FD. They have investigators and would frequently call me to "assist" with an investigation. I sometimes suspected they just wanted me to keep them company until the board up crew arrived.
They were the only ones that could declare the cause of a fire.
I would give them my report which was one of the following:
Not electrical: no wiring in the area of origin.
Probably not electrical: wiring or devices near the area of origin but no evidence that they contributed to ignition.
Probably electrical: wiring or devices showed damage that may have preceeded ignition or caused ignition.
Electrical: Kitchen sink over flows into the panel directly under it in the basement, electric space heater next to the couch that burned, parachute cloth drapped over the bare bulb light fixture, etc.
And some were just: Undetermined.
My reports were only to support their decision on determining fire origin.
In my opinion, every fire department should have an Electrician / Electrical inspector available to help in investigations.
Alan--

Thanks to ALL of the responses I got to this thread.
I actually thought I would get a resounding "Sod-Off!" message.
I started off as a Career Fireman (back when you were allowed to be called a Fireman).
However, I worked up through the ranks and ended up (oddly enough) as a Fire Safety Officer.
I have the utmost respect for any FF or any such person in the US, your fires are just as big as ours.
Being a Station Officer, in a brigade like here means that you have to know a lot more than say a City Brigade or so forth.
John (Reno) makes some very good points, there is a lot of fingers in the pie, so to speak.
We don't guess the origin or the cause of a fire.
We get a guy from Christchurch now to determine our suspicious fires.
It's all about the money.

SOD OFF!!!


There. Happy now?


We have several Fire Investigators on our department. However, under IL (and IIRC federal) law, C&O (Cause & Origin) is determined by the "Fire Chief, his Appointed Designee, or other competent authority as determined by the Municipality or Authority Having Jurisdiction".



Short answer? Not a lot.

Here in IL, Fire Investigators go through a series of 3 40 hour classes and examinations. Arson Investigators have the same basic classes, but are law enforcement officers. (the LE part is available to FF's for a couple of hundred extra hours of class time).

Any fatality incident automatically brings in an Investigator from the Office of the State Fire Marshal.

The training is pretty good, but it's more towards finding the location and evidence preservation that real info about electrical construction.

Only had a few real electrical origin fires.

One was an A/C unit that was spliced from a 12/3 cord to a 16/2 extension cord. The "V" pattern led right to the splice location behind the couch.

The second that pops to mind was a Christmas season fire where the family had been running space heaters in a old (1910-20's ers) house. Heavy use of extension cords under carpets as well for area and holiday lighting.

As their house was burning down, they admitted to replacing the 15 and 20 ampere fuses with 30's "because the other ones kept blowing too often".

The third I can think of was where a leak from a box for a light mounted outside (through an attic wall) was causing a fault in the old BX - the resistance was heating up the armor; eventually (over a period of days, according to one of our investigators), the truss it was laying on top of started to slowly burn, and only started to openly burn about the time we got the call for the "smell of something burning".

Good thing we got the call when we did. If they'd waited until morning, the smoke detectors would have sent them out into the -15F temperatures to watch their house burn. We were able to extinguish it with only minor damage to the soffit in the kitchen and a few gallons of water.

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 01-23-2007).]

On one hand, I do feel sorry for those folks......but on the other, I see it as natural selection at work.

Way too many people, including a lot who should know better, play fast and loose with electricity. Many times it's only property that gets burned or destroyed, but too often there's a human toll too.


That brought back to mind the fire investigation report on the MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas. I was able to download the (almost) complete fire investigation report (six very large PDF files). The cause was indeed electrical, it was faulty installation of aluminum flex conduit to a chiller for the pie display case. They go into great detail as to exactly how a few mistakes in the installation of that flex (and the condenser unit, which was under a counter) combined over a time span of years to start that fire.


Another factor mentioned in the MGM fire was that the hot air from the condensing unit was being discharged into the wood-framed void the flex and refrigerant lines ran through, contributing to the rapid ignition of the area.

I can't remember the exact link to those files, but a Google search on "MGM Hotel Fire" should find it....

Hi there Doug,
Thanks for your reply.
Some things about your last post worry me slightly.
That in itself is a cause for concern, where people find it acceptable to merely join wires anywhere they feel, outside of walls with incorrect wiring methods.
Secondly,
With idiocy like this occurring, is it any wonder that Fire investigators could suppose that tampering with equipment has happened?.

OK Doug,
I'm leaving the NZ Fire Service next weekend, after then I will have little to do with the local Fire Brigade here per se.
I've done 17 years as a FF of various ranks and I've had enough.
I get married in March and although my fiancee is a full-time Ambulance Officer, she works in shifts, unlike us volunteer FF's.
The early mornings and LATE nights really start to take thier toll after a while.
I've seen a LOT of FF's here lose thier marriages to the Fire Service, mainly because of the dedication required, I'm not going to be one of them.
One Senior Station Officer here left because after 21 years, was sad that he really had not seen his kids grow up, if the siren/pager goes, you go.
Next week is my last Duty crew with Red Watch.
We are having a BBQ here at home for my last day with the Brigade.
It is going to be hard, obviously living next door to a Fire Station can't make it any easier but, you have to cut ties some-time.
I just want to settle down and start a family.
I always maintained that I would retire from fire-fighting before I got married.
Fire-fighting is a single persons game these days

I think a little review of history is in order here.

In 1893, Chicago held the "Worlds Columbian Exposition," a fair which showcased the new marvel ... electricity. As you might guess, there were LOTS of fires as a result. Also, as you might guess, this touched a sore spot, with Chicago having burnt down in 1871 in the "Great Chicago Fire."

Soon after, the first electric codes were written, and UL was formed by the insurance companies.

We've reached a point now where there is almost never a fire caused by a properly installed electrical system. Of the few problems there are, it seems that 90% are from errors in the installation (loose connections), and 10% matters related to age and maintenance.

Shoddy appliances, misuse of extension cords, and "well, it works, don't it" arrangements are another matter entirely. IMO, these problems might be 'electrical' in nature, but not the sort of thing we can fix.

The one exception is the result of folks living in homes older than they are. Our lives have changed tremendously in recent years, and homes are rarely adequate for this new lifestyle. As a result - mea culpa - even I must use some extension cords in my 1940 rental! You'll even find some of those "suicide adapters" too!

As an interesting matter of fact the USA are the only country I know that regards the permanent use of extension cords and power strips as something bad. In Austria and Germany it's very common to see power strips for example behind computers installed for years and nobody is concerned about it. The only thing that is definitely frowned upon is the use of cheap extension cords (or generally extension cords as they introduce additional connection resistance) for high-power apploances such as washing machines (up to 3500W @230V), electric dryers and similar.
Of course, for example running 18 AWG extension cords under carpets or dozens of power strips to power a whole room from one original receptacle is not a good idea, but I don't see any reason not to use quality power strips and extension cords in some applications. For example, I have a triplex receptacle for my computer in which I plug a surge diverter power strip. That way my computer is protected and if needed I can unplug everything at once. Installing a sufficient number of receptacles for such a computer system would have been impossible since most computer systems consist of a huge number of very low power devices like speakers, ink-jet printers, etc.

Well have a beer on me, Mate! I've got 17 years myself as a volly, and I plan on "retiring" at 20. That will leave me only 8 more years doing it as my F/T gig to be able to retire to where the real money is... Electrical Contracting! [lol]


Good on ya! Now, the real question is, can she deal with a faultsman and the pager?

Congrats Trump!

Thanks a lot Doug!.

Tex, they may talk about how terrible power strips are in inspector meetings and seminars but in the 30 years I was with IBM I was never in a computer room without plenty of them.
Nobody ever seriously suggested that the install a receptacle for each of the 200 or 300 modems in a big server rack array. each rack will have a plug strip in them with receptacles as close together as the wall warts will fit that plugs in a NEMA 5-15.

@gfretwell: I was thinking residential, and there has been a lot of discussion on that topic around here.
Nice to see it's not that tough everywhere

Trumpy, Congrats!

Just a minor nitpick, but if a ground fault caused a fire with pre-1959 BX, it was most likely inductive reactance more than resistance (although resistance probably did contribute). The old BX tended to conduct the bulk of fault current in the spiral path of the armor, which caused a choke effect. The post-1959 stuff has that little 14 AWG aluminum strip in it, obviously too small to properly conduct fault current on its own, but it makes continous contact with the armor, reducing the choke effect. The old BX often imposed a high impedance on fault current, and this resulted in numerous fires, since a ground fault that should otherwise trip a breaker or blow a fuse would not do so.

This is the reason why runs of flexible metallic conduit exceeding six feet must have a separate EGC, as per 250.118(6)c.(2002 NEC).

In my area, we don't use Type AC cable. We are required to have a separate copper EGC for all wiring methods. Therefore, you see a lot of MC cable around here.

I'm still amazed any cause can be found when a house burns down like
this

Ian A.

[This message has been edited by Theelectrikid (edited 02-01-2007).]

Just to show the difficulty that fire investigators go through right now the Manitoba Fire Commissioners office is investigating a fire that resulted in the death of two 30+ year fire captains and injured 4 fire fighters.

Its in the -30°C range right now with the wind chill and the City Of Winnipeg public works department assigned a waterworks steam truck Tuesday to assist the fire investigators thaw out the rubble so they can sift through it.

It does not help the pressure the investigators are under with some of the Winnipeg media saying that their "sources" say that the fire started in the attached garage where the electrical is.

All that's known right now is there was a second floor flash over that was hot enough to melt the portable radio assigned to one of captains.

For any of the firefighter members of ECN that want to find out more the Winnipeg Fire Union page has current information at http://uffw.ca/current_events.htm

I think most of the fire halls in British Columbia have their Flags at Half Mast.

mbhydro:

Sorry to hear about that loss of life..many folks don't know how dangerous firefighting really is. Fire can turn on you in a heartbeat. I have a lot of respect for those in the profession.

On Thursday morning, a neighbor's house caught fire. It originated in the front bedroom and was detected by the resident of the other half of the duplex. Luckily the heaviest damage was confined to that bedroom, the FD had to make only one penetration into the roof (a small one at that) and it was knocked down very quickly. A lot of that good fortune was due to the fact that the FD here is only a few blocks away.

The cause? Overloaded receptacle in that bedroom. This one was definately electrical. The poco disconnected that unit as there was further wiring damage in the attic.

I spoke very briefly with the resident, she was unhurt and grateful that only "things" were lost, no injuries or life lost.

I may talk with her again and if she agrees I will get photos of the damage.

Good Lord mbhydro,
My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the people involved in that incident.
The loss of experience like that can never be recovered.
Cruel that the higher ranked staff lost thier lives.
Not good at all.