ELi5: How do firefighters and investigators find out what caused a house fire after its already burned to ashes?
In: Other
So, not everything is damaged, and there are clues in the patterns and methods of spreading. Hot gases rise, so ceilings can be very burnt but yhe floor only partially. Generally, fire spreads in predictable ways so you can back-track that to work out the likely “seat” of the fire, which also tends to be where the signs of damage and heat are the strongest.
For example, you find a spot of concrete that shows cracking and looks like it melted, and ceilings above it is extra black and charred. That shows that something was incredibly hot and touching the floor, possibly a liquid fuel like petrol or industrial achohol, or a large pile of cardboard or other flammable material, and thst caused the fire to spread to the celing and the throughout the building.
Unless there was an obvious reason for something like that to be located there, that becomes *potential* evidence of arson. The spread can also point to other things, like a fire door that should have closed being left open, or residue on burnt-out material indicating the presence of materials that shouldn’t be there (improperly stored chemicals, etc).
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