How do firefighters figure out what the cause of a fire was?

Question

I assumed fire just absolutely destroyed everything to the same level.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

It depends on the fire – and that itself can be a clue.

Structures are built to be pretty fire resistant so most things don’t burn easily or evenly. There is a lot of construction data about burn rates and the temperature required to start and keep a fire going.

They take in all of that data and try and then backtrack to what makes sense. If the area around the dryer is burned the most… probably should investigate there first.

Something burning down completely is its own clue, if most structures are fire resistant, what could cause a big enough fire to burn the whole thing down?

They also usually come to a “likely” cause and are not 100% definitive unless they have a lot of info.