Fire and Explosion Incident Investigation

The Challenges in Fire and Explosion Incident Investigations

​The Stake Is High!

After the cause of the incident is convincingly determined, the stakeholders will be able to prevent similar incidents in the future, personal injuries and fatalities can be avoided, properties can be saved, business interruptions will be prevented, and the responsibilities can be appropriately assigned to parties.

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If an investigation ends with a wrong or inaccurate conclusion about the cause(s) of a fire or explosion, serious consequences may be created, such as:

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• Stake holders will miss an opportunities to abate the real hazards and risks of fires and explosions in their facilities;

• The same or similar incident may occur in the future, which can cause injuries, property damage and business interruptions as well as noncompliance; and

• The responsibilities/liabilities may be assigned to the wrong sides.

It is therefore critical to accurately determine what did cause and what did not cause the fire or explosion, however, all investigators have to face the following challenges in fire and explosion incident investigations and develop a scientific-based and effective approach for achieving this goal.

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The Challenge in Finding the Origin of a Fire or Explosion

For many fire or explosion cases, particularly in industrial facilities such as manufacturing plants, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the location where a fire or explosion is ignited, i.e., the origin of fire or explosion without evaluating the possible causes at the same time. This is so because:

• Fire and/or explosion sites are often severely damaged or destroyed by intense burning and/or explosion, which leave no clear marks of the origins;

• For complex settings, areas to be affected often are extensive and complex and there are no clear marks of causation-result paths; and

• Since there are diverse and complex paths of flame and explosion propagations, each fire or explosion case is usually different from others.

Therefore, it is hard if not impossible in many cases to tell the origin based only on site inspections and also there are no handy rules.

The Challenge in Determining the Cause(s) of a Fire or Explosion

Secondly, even the origin is determined, the cause can still be difficult to be determined due to many reasons, including:

• Diversity of flammable and combustible materials that act differently in chemical reactions, fires, and explosions;

• Diversity of ignition sources and mechanisms, which give rise to different levels of ignition capabilities; and

• Diversity of process technologies, equipment, operations, and safety measures.

Our experience shows that the effective approach to accomplish a successful fire or explosion investigation is to, in the earliest stage of the investigation, embark on determinations of both origin and cause at same time.

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​You may rest assured that our experts will bring the extensive and comprehensive expertise and experience to assist in search for answers for any unfortunate fire or explosion incidents, whether it is a dust, liquid or gas explosion or fire, electrostatic discharge, self-heating/spontaneous combustion, or chemical reaction.

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