Finding clues in the ashes: Investigating fires is another way to save lives

In most fire investigations, the work begins even before the embers have cooled.

But finding a cause can take weeks, months or even years in some cases.

Unlike crime scenes, where bullet shells or surveillance video may yield clues, fires destroy nearly all evidence, leaving investigators to study the patterns fires make on buildings or the way the grass is bent.

“I’ve been doing this for 32 years, and it’s amazing the amount of destruction you have when you have fires. It still blows my mind what it looks like when you burn a house down,” said Yakima Fire Department investigator Lt. Hans Solie. “So, if there are ways to stop fires, it’s better for the people, it’s better for the city.”

Yakima County Fire Marshal Chris Pederson often arrives after firefighters have started putting out the blaze. But the minute she gets there, she talks to the firefighters first on the scene to see if they have any clues for her. Then, it’s into the charred remains, working from the least burned part to the most, to identify where the fire started and, hopefully, what caused it.

“You can only go so far if it’s all burnt and there’s nothing there,” she said. “Sometimes you just won’t be able to find out. You can dig through it and come up with a hypothesis, but if you don’t know for sure it would be classified as undetermined.”

Pederson’s department has solved nearly half the 33 fire cases it has investigated as of March of this year. But she’s the only fire investigator in the department. The Yakima Fire Department has two dozen investigators and has solved nearly 80 percent of the hundreds of cases it’s investigated in the last several years. From 2012 to 2014, the department investigated some 870 cases.

Neither state nor national agencies keep a record of how many fire cases departments solve compared to those investigated. But John Lentini, a Florida-based, nationally recognized fire investigation consultant, said in his experience solving about 80 percent of fires is a good goal.

Part of the difference in solvency rates has to do with response time. In the city of Yakima, firefighters tend to reach fire scenes faster than rural departments, and that can mean more evidence can be preserved.

“If you work in the county, you’re going to see a lot of houses turned to powder,” Lentini said. “It just depends on your job.”

And it’s even harder to find the cause of wildland fires, which is why so few of Yakima’s summer brush fire cases have been solved.

Department of Natural Resources senior fire investigator Bruce Balderson said to solve wildland fires he relies on fire indicators, such as the amount of damage, the angle of burn marks and whether the fire burned on a hill or flat land. Those clues can show investigators the origin of the fire. The base of a blackened V on a hillside, for example, can show where the fire got its start.

“There are a large number of fires that the final determination is ‘unknown’ or ‘undetermined,’” said National Association of State Fire Marshals executive director Jim Narva. “Part of what happens is because they go to court so many times, unless the investigator is 100 percent sure, it gets listed as unknown because it’s somewhat undetermined.”

It’s hard to prove to a jury someone intentionally started a fire if it’s still possible a candle had been left burning after the family went to bed.

Even if fire cases can’t be solved, nearly all investigators agree trying to determine the cause is vital. It allows those authorities to craft education to fight against fire hazards people may encounter every day. In other cases, it can help authorities find malfunctioning equipment and have it recalled to prevent fires elsewhere.

“Let’s say we have 15 kitchen fires in three days and it was all because people were using oil, then we really need to get that information out,” said Yakima Fire Department spokesman Jeff Pfaff. “There are often times that my information is spurred by the community.”

Sometimes that local information combined with national fire data helps investigators see trends of household items actually being the source of fires.

Pederson recalled some years ago when investigators tied a number of fires to Mr. Coffee coffee machines, resulting in a nationwide recall.

Something similar is happening in Yakima and the Tri-Cities, where officials are working with a cigarette company that may not be following manufacturing requirements, resulting in more fires started because of the cigarettes.

“With (the state fire marshal) putting that information out, more people in the state have said they see that and now there’s a box that says if it’s a cigarette fire and what kind of cigarette,” Pfaff said. “So now the attorney general’s office is seeing what they can do to curb the manufacturers.”

In the long run, Pederson said despite the possibility that investigators might find a serial arsonist or recoup money spent fighting a large fire that was started by someone who wasn’t paying attention, the real point of investigating fires is much simpler.

“It’s to save lives,” she said.