Fire Investigation 04
Fire Investigation 04 : (1) The Evolution of Fire Scene Inspection Technology: To state that the fire investigation profession did not immediately embrace NFPA 921 would be a serious understatement. In fact, the howls of protest from fire investigation "professionals" were deafening. If what was printed in "that document" were actually true, it meant that hundreds or thousands of accidental fires had been wrongly determined to be incendiary fires, i. e. , intentionally set. No investigator wanted to admit to the unspeakable possibility that he had caused an innocent person to be wrongly convicted, or a family to be wrongly denied their life savings. The profession was in denial. The first serious challenge to the "old school" of fire investigators came in 1996 in Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance Company v. Janelle R. Benfield, where a fire investigator who failed to properly document his observations was excluded from testifying. In the appeal of that exclusion, the International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI) filed an amicus curiae brief, in which they contended that fire investigators should not be held to a reliability inquiry because fire investigation was "less scientific" than the kind of scientific testing discussed in the Daubert decision of 1993. Eventually though, there were enough court rulings, including the unanimous Supreme Court decision in Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, to persuade the majority of fire investigators that it was necessary to accept the scientific method recommended by NFPA 921. It is difficult to state exactly when NFPA 921 became "generally accepted by the relevant scientific community," but 2000 was an important turning point. It was that year that the United States Department of Justice released a research report entitled Fire and Arson Scene Evidence: A Guide For Public Safety Personnel,which identified NFPA 921 as a "benchmark for the training and expertise of everyone who purports to be an expert in the origin and cause determination of fires". That same year, the IAAI for the first time endorsed the adoption of the new edition of NFPA 921
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