Investigationg Loss Investigation: Part II

Hello Everyone,
This is the second post in our series on loss investigation in fire engineering.  The first post can be found here.  Our discussion is founded on the idea that fire engineers can support clients and find them settlements totaling millions of dollars.  They do so by studying the behavior of a fire, analyzing what could have prevented it, and how any fire safety and suppression systems that were in place may have failed.  They will support the client during subrogation and litigation, and prove that the party responsible for the system’s failure is help responsible, both criminally and civilly.
During a system failure analysis, a fire investigator will be able to tell a building owner or tenant about the cause and origin of a fire, by doing a cause and origin investigation.  However, this preliminary report may be a simplified version of what actually transpired.  It is useful here to use a theoretical example.
Say, for instance, that, a high school chemistry lab burns down.  A fire investigator might be able to tell you that the fire started from a faulty outlet.  However, a fire engineer would be able to develop a much more complex narrative.  In the high school chemistry lab, a student left a burner on.  The burner blew out, which allowed gas to leak into the room.  Because this school, like any American public high school, is short on supplies and storage, the teacher has stored the flammable chemicals in a cabinet in the room itself, as opposed to in storage.  The electrical system, which is about 50 years old, causes a classroom projector to short out and sparks fly out of the outlet.  When a small fire breaks out that ultimately burns down the whole science wing of the high school, a fire engineer can assess how well the sprinkler system worked.  Instead of the teacher or students being held responsible, the system that failed to do what it was supposed to would be held systematically responsible and the school would be able to collect enough insurance money to build a new (and better) science wing.

Ultimately, using a fire engineering firm will save an institution thousands of dollars after a disaster.