On this episode, Scott and Chasity go deep into a real commercial structure fire that went all the way to jury trial—and nearly got labeled as “negative corpus” by the defense.
They walk through the fire from first alarm to conviction: a midnight manual pull station, sprinklers flowing on stacked cardboard, a lone security guard, multiple small fires at knee height, and no obvious ignition source in the debris. Scott breaks down, step-by-step, how he eliminated every plausible cause, built a scientific timeline using fire dynamics and experimental burns, and defended his incendiary determination in court.
Along the way they unpack:
- The difference between negative corpus and proper process of elimination
- How NFPA 921 evolved from 2008 through 2024 on this issue
- Why documenting what you eliminated and how may be more important than your final cause
- Using research like the Ignition Handbook and Kirk’s Fire Investigation to support your findings
- Why separating origin & cause from interviews protects your objectivity
- How attorneys will attack your work—and how to stay calm and defensible on the stand
They also touch on AI and NFPA’s new usage policy, talk respiratory protection with CleanSpace PAPR and ITL, share upcoming training opportunities, and introduce this episode’s vocab word: “Forensic”—timed perfectly with NFPA 921 (2024) formally calling fire investigation a forensic science discipline for the first time.
Stick around to the end for a tease of their upcoming NFPA 921 chapter-by-chapter game-show series, and don’t forget to smash that five-star rating—it’s free-99 and helps the podcast reach more investigators.
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