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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you

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Speaker 2: should know. And before we start, Chuck, I want to

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Speaker 2: take a moment to take the opportunity to take the

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Speaker 2: chance over wishing you a happy birthday.

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Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.

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Speaker 2: I did March same day Caesar was stabbed. Can't get

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Speaker 2: over there.

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Speaker 1: Anyone, anyone famous gets stabbed on your birthday. I don't

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Speaker 1: think so.

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Speaker 2: No, definitely not.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well we'll have to change that by stabbing you.

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Speaker 2: That was sinister. I even wished you happy birthday and

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Speaker 2: look what I get? I get a stabbing throw. I

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Speaker 2: know what has become of us?

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Speaker 1: Chuck, thanks man, the Big five to three. Such a

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Speaker 1: notable birthday.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like, Also does it feel any different

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Speaker 2: than the No? I feel like. Also we need to

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Speaker 2: give a retroactive happy birthday to Jerry too from last month.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 2: Happy birthday, Jerry.

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Speaker 1: You know I did the ultimate fifty three year old

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Speaker 1: guy thing for my birthday. I went to Athens, Georgia

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Speaker 1: for two Bob Dylan shows. Wow, that were exactly alike.

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Speaker 2: Were they really he played the same show.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Bob Dylan does it say like, oh, let me

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Speaker 1: mix it up for if anyone wants to come the

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Speaker 1: second night.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I'm actually surprised. I could totally see him playing

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Speaker 2: different shows depending on his mood or whatever he felt

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Speaker 2: like that night.

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Speaker 1: No, well that, I mean there is something to that.

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Speaker 1: But he's eighty three, has got his set locked in right.

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Speaker 2: Really, he's thirty years older than.

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Speaker 1: You, I know, and he's still playing live music.

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Speaker 2: That's awesome. Could you understand a word? He said? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It was very a vocal forward set actually, like

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Speaker 1: some real quiet music, and his voice was out front

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Speaker 1: in the mix. I've seen him dyling a lot. It's

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Speaker 1: always you never know what you're gonna get, so it's

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Speaker 1: always That's part of the fun being a Dylan fan

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Speaker 1: is like, Ooh, I wonder what he's going to be

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Speaker 1: like this time.

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Speaker 2: Is he in a bad mood tonight? No?

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Speaker 1: He was great. He's old though, man, But yeah.

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Speaker 2: Eighty three is very old to beginning on stage and

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Speaker 2: playing how long of a set.

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Speaker 1: Like an hour and a half seventeen eighteen songs he played?

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Speaker 1: He plays piano full time now, which is sort of

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Speaker 1: the new change. Okay, but he stands. I've never seen

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Speaker 1: anyone do this. I've seen people stand at a keyboard,

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Speaker 1: but I've never seen anyone stand behind a grand piano

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Speaker 1: the entire time.

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Speaker 2: Basically, that is unusual.

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Speaker 1: He would sit a little bit, but he'd sit for

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Speaker 1: like six or seven seconds that he popped right back up. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that was really.

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Speaker 2: Interesting going on with him. That's very it's interesting.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, we're here to talk about Arson Investigation, and big

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Speaker 1: thanks to Livia for her help with this, because you know,

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Speaker 1: I was just kind of keen on, like, hey, Lvia

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Speaker 1: put together an article on like how that works and

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Speaker 1: how they figure out if someone burns something down, and

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Speaker 1: she came back pretty quickly and she's like, oh, chuck,

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Speaker 1: guess what it turns out? Like we can talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about that. But the real story here is

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Speaker 1: the fact that Arson Investigation, for most of its time

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Speaker 1: as a thing, has been a lot of sort of witchcraftybs. Yeah, folklore,

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Speaker 1: And that's the real story.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, mysticism, made up intuition is probably about the kindest

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Speaker 2: way you can describe how it was for decades.

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Speaker 1: Like did you see backdraft?

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Speaker 2: No? I didn't Actually, isn't that like a Ron Howard.

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Speaker 1: Jam Yeah, back in the day. But de Niro plays

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Speaker 1: a Arson investigator who is very much fits and you

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Speaker 1: know he apparently hung out with like three or four

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Speaker 1: Arson investigators and kind of got his performance from them. Sure,

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Speaker 1: which makes total sense now that I've read this, because

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of like not mysticism, but really

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Speaker 1: like you know, smelling something and like sniffing something. He

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Speaker 1: chipped off of a wall, putting.

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Speaker 2: Your fingers on the railroad tracks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, really corny lines. Like one of his corny lines is,

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Speaker 1: you know, the only way to kill it is to

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Speaker 1: love it a little bit. Man. So it's very much

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Speaker 1: in line with what we found out here, which was

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Speaker 1: that Arson investigation has long been just not scientific.

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Speaker 2: No, and there's like we're not just here to poke

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Speaker 2: fun at Arson investigators because they used unscientific methods. The

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Speaker 2: big problem with this is those unscientific intuitive methods have

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Speaker 2: been proven time and time again to be just utterly wrong,

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Speaker 2: but they're used still to this day in some jurisdictions

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Speaker 2: to put people away sometimes for like sometimes to death.

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Speaker 2: Some people have been put to death under the junk

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Speaker 2: science that arson investigation is and has been for decades

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Speaker 2: and has only recently started to really kind of come

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Speaker 2: in line and become a scientific endeavor.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, so big thanks, Olivia said to a

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Speaker 1: couple of gentlemen, Douglas Starr and David gran They wrote

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Speaker 1: some pretty great pieces, Douglas Starr for Discoverer and David

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Speaker 1: grand for The New Yorker.

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Speaker 2: Can I just say David Grant's New Yorker articles called

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Speaker 2: trow By Fire about Cameron Todd Willingham and his wrongful execution.

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Speaker 2: I think yeah, basically everybody should read that article at

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Speaker 2: some point in decuren their life. It's just gut wrenching.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, great, great investigation, great journalism. And so let's

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Speaker 1: get going here. I guess the first thing we should

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Speaker 1: say is that the first people to get involved in

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Speaker 1: arson investigation were not scientists, Like it was sort of

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Speaker 1: developed as a thing by firefighters, by cops, by law

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Speaker 1: enforcement generally, and not people who understood the scientific method.

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Speaker 1: The first book about fire investigation was called Tiredstigations Very

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Speaker 1: Appropriate No Colin. It was published in nineteen forty five

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Speaker 1: by Harry retheret of the Fire Underwriter's Investigation Bureau of

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Speaker 1: Canada and it was very much written for an audience

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Speaker 1: of law enforcement to be like, all right, here's your

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Speaker 1: handbook if you want to prove arson.

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Speaker 2: Right. That's the big problem with it is in addition

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Speaker 2: to it basically being like old wives tales and folklore,

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Speaker 2: it came from the position like, if you're investigating this,

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Speaker 2: if you're using this book, you're trying to prove arson

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Speaker 2: not You're trying to figure out what started a fire,

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Speaker 2: and it may or may not have been arson. It's

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Speaker 2: here's what to look for for arson. And the problem

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Speaker 2: is is a lot of really common features that are

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Speaker 2: found after a fire we're attributed wrongly to arson. And

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Speaker 2: this is where it started to spread all the way

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Speaker 2: back in nineteen forty five.

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Speaker 1: You know what a better title would have been, What

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Speaker 1: What to Expect when You're Expecting Arson?

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Speaker 2: Was an all time great chuck, Oh.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, I just thought of that. So that book

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Speaker 1: was sort of the standard until nineteen sixty nine. About

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Speaker 1: twenty five years later or so, I got any Paul

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Speaker 1: Kirk biochemists this time and forensic scientists at the University

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Speaker 1: of cal Berkeley, published a different book called Fire Investigation.

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Speaker 2: Well, it didn't have the s so it must have

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Speaker 2: been the prequel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this one should have been called Fire Investigation Colon.

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Speaker 1: You won't believe how much has changed.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, So Paul Kirk, being a scientist, he's like, no,

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Speaker 2: you really want to track down what started the fire

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Speaker 2: and then start making your assumptions after you've collected evidence

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Speaker 2: and analyzed it. Don't start from the premise that this

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Speaker 2: is arson and then look for signs that support your premise.

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Speaker 2: That's wrong. That's not how science works. The problem is is,

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Speaker 2: like Paul Kirk was like, use the scientific method, and

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Speaker 2: the fire investigators said to Paul, Paul, there's not a

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Speaker 2: lot of science for us to compare our findings against someone.

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Speaker 2: Help help nanny state, and the nanny States swooped in

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Speaker 2: and improved everything forever.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. About eight years later or so after that book,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven, there was a government report that agreed, hey,

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Speaker 1: there's not a lot of stuff going on, and so

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Speaker 1: there were a couple of guides put out Arson and

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Speaker 1: Urs Investigation in seventy seven, which was based on surveys

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Speaker 1: from leading investigators, and then Fire in the Fire Investigation

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Speaker 1: Handbook from nineteen eighty and we should just kind of

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Speaker 1: read through like this quick list, because this was the

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Speaker 1: general thinking of like how you can tell if it's

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Speaker 1: arson if these things are there in the burned house.

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Speaker 1: I'll do the first one. Everyone knows this. The most

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Speaker 1: severely burned area of the house is where it started.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it just makes sense since that had the opportunity

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Speaker 2: to burn the longest, so it burned the hardest.

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Speaker 1: Rights Totally, all these makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Also, heat rises, which means fire rises and smoke rises,

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Speaker 2: so the ceiling is always the most burned part of

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Speaker 2: any given room, which they call compartments in fire investigation lingo,

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Speaker 2: and that if you find burned floors, that automatically says

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Speaker 2: an accelerant was used, because you dump accelerate on the

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Speaker 2: floor and light it, and that's how the floor gets charred.

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Speaker 2: Telltale sign if you find a charred floor, an accelerant

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Speaker 2: was used.

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Speaker 1: Also, if you see a puddle shaped char on that floor,

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Speaker 1: that's another telltale sign for liquid because molke spreads out.

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Speaker 1: If you see a V shaped soot mark on the wall,

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Speaker 1: that is going to literally point to the origin of

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Speaker 1: the fire.

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Speaker 2: Right. And another one that kind of was an umbrella

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Speaker 2: category for some subcategories is that an accelerant fueled fire

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Speaker 2: burns hotter than any other kind of fire. It also

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Speaker 2: burns faster as a result, So that means that all

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Speaker 2: sorts of weird stuff happens in a hotter, faster fire.

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Speaker 2: For example, something that they call crazed glass, which is

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Speaker 2: glass that has this weird webbing of cracks through it,

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Speaker 2: which they're like, is again an indicator of a very hot,

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Speaker 2: fast fire, which indicates an accelerant was used. So you

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Speaker 2: find glass with webs in it, that is a surefire

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Speaker 2: indicator that somebody started this fire using some sort of

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Speaker 2: accelerant or fuel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they said, that's us. It's craze, And they went,

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Speaker 1: don't you mean glaze. I said, now, let's just call

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Speaker 1: it craze since it's so close to another glass term.

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Speaker 2: Right, he goes, I hadn't thought about that. That makes

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Speaker 2: it even better.

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Speaker 1: So Nixon, believe it or not, kind of got things

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Speaker 1: going in nineteen seventy three when there was a report

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Speaker 1: from that administration that fires caused more than eleven billion

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Speaker 1: dollars in damage, killed twelve thousand people in nineteen seventy three.

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Speaker 1: A lot of this was found out to be exaggerated,

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Speaker 1: but it didn't matter because that kind of lit a

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Speaker 1: match no pen intended under the governments. But to get

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Speaker 1: to get into this, and they created the and funded

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Speaker 1: the Center for Fire Research, which is when they basically said,

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Speaker 1: all right, let's get one hundred engineers to really look

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Speaker 1: at this from an objective point of view and come

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Speaker 1: back to us with some good stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the early things that came out of

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Speaker 2: this that was really groundbreaking was called the Cone calorimeter,

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Speaker 2: and it was invented by a guy with the wonderful

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Speaker 2: name of y Tennis Bob Ruscus, who is a fire

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Speaker 2: safety expert to this day. And the Cone calorimeter is

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Speaker 2: essentially like a vent hood, a giant vent hood that

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Speaker 2: has a ton of sensors attached to it, and you

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Speaker 2: set something on fire, say like a specific kind of couch,

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Speaker 2: and it records all sorts of different things, the chemical

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Speaker 2: composition of the gases that are released of the smoke,

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Speaker 2: how hot it burns, how long it burns. It even

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Speaker 2: has a scale so you can measure you can compare

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Speaker 2: the weight of the sook compared to the weight of

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Speaker 2: like what the what the furniture was like before it

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Speaker 2: caught fire, and you could take all this and put

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Speaker 2: it in a database. Like what you're doing now is

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Speaker 2: carrying out repeatable experiments to produce data that people can

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Speaker 2: use to compare their findings to which was again the

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Speaker 2: problem that fire investigators were having. That the Nanty State

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Speaker 2: swooped in and helped. And this is how they helped.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and just to create an image in the viewers'

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Speaker 1: mind's eye. If you're picturing that thing as some humongous

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Speaker 1: thing where you set a couch on it, that's not

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Speaker 1: the deal. It's very small actually, and it's it looks

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Speaker 1: like a little campstove sort of with all these things

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Speaker 1: looked to it. So you cut a piece of the

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Speaker 1: couch off, is what happened.

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Speaker 2: Actually, they have larger ones too that that you can

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Speaker 2: set essentially a house on fire underneath one.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, okay, but I'm talking about this the general

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Speaker 1: lab version.

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Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay.

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Speaker 1: They have they have them bigger than a house.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I saw that in some labs that they have

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Speaker 2: like house simulations in they like the roof will be

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Speaker 2: the colorimeter. Okay, So it's it's like all sorts of

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Speaker 2: different sizes. We're both right, I think. Is the happy

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Speaker 2: outcome of it, okay, And there's also another experiment that

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Speaker 2: or another finding that these experiments yielded, which is flash over.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I thought, I mean I could have sworn.

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Speaker 1: In the movie Backdraft, they called that backdraft. Maybe that's

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Speaker 1: a similar term, or maybe it's the same thing, and

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Speaker 1: maybe it was a oh it is, okay, it's.

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Speaker 2: A backdraft seems to be a component of a flashover.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, Well, I guess that makes sense. So a

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Speaker 1: flashover is when you've got a fire going in a house.

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Speaker 1: You've got a big layer of smoke that's got all

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Speaker 1: kinds of like combustible gases, all sorts of little particles

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Speaker 1: that are super flammable of in that smoke. It's at

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Speaker 1: the ceiling collecting and collecting and then just getting more

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Speaker 1: dense and going down, down down, as a room heats up,

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Speaker 1: and then as it hits a certain point basically a

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Speaker 1: high enough temperature to ignite it, there is like an explosion.

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Speaker 1: Basically it can hit one thousand degrees and when that

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Speaker 1: flashover happens, you can see char marks and burn marks

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Speaker 1: that previously people were like, the only way to get

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Speaker 1: that is if you like dump gas all over the room.

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Speaker 2: Right, and that's a thousand degrees celsius, like eighteen hundred

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Speaker 2: degrees farenheit. Right, that is really hot, and it happens

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Speaker 2: there's a really steep incline where that temperature just increases

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Speaker 2: like that and everything stuff just spontaneously catches fire because

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Speaker 2: it's so hot, it's reached the ignition point for that

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Speaker 2: couch or that TV or whatever. The whole room catches fire,

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Speaker 2: and like you said, it does all sorts of It

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Speaker 2: leaves all sorts of telltale marks that had long been

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Speaker 2: attributed to arson. For example, the idea that the floors

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Speaker 2: chart or another one is kind of related to the

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Speaker 2: idea that if the floor's charred in accelerant was used,

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Speaker 2: if the underneath or if the bottom of a couch,

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Speaker 2: what's that called the underside of a couch, the undercarriage

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Speaker 2: of the couch, that's where the socks are, the fanny

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Speaker 2: of the couch.

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Speaker 1: If that's burn it's true.

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Speaker 2: If that's burned, then then they were like, well an

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Speaker 2: accelerant was used, it's spilled over under the couch and

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Speaker 2: caught the couch on fire. No, when the whole room

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Speaker 2: becomes what's called fully involved, the whole room's on fire,

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Speaker 2: the bottom of the couch can very easily get get burnt.

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Speaker 2: Same with the underside of the bed and any furniture

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Speaker 2: and the floor. So that's that was a big finding too.

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Speaker 2: And then the other thing about the flashover is it

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Speaker 2: can it can basically stop and stay in suspended animation

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Speaker 2: until oxygen comes in and it catches fire again. But

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Speaker 2: wherever that oxygen's coming from, the fire follows in like

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Speaker 2: a line, and it can go around the corner, up

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Speaker 2: the stairs, through a bedroom door, and out a bathroom window.

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Speaker 2: If that's where the oxygen's coming from the fire will follow.

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Speaker 2: It is what's what a backdraft is in my understanding.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I think that's that. I haven't seen that movie

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Speaker 1: in a while, but that sounds about right. Okay, even

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Speaker 1: though it was a movie fed version, you know, right,

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Speaker 1: I think the science in it was supposed to be

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Speaker 1: pretty good.

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Speaker 2: Oh was it?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean it was Ron Howard, you know.

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Speaker 2: So what was the I mean, this is like the

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Speaker 2: early nineties, wasn't it.

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Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, it seems about right.

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Speaker 2: I mean this would have been so one thing that

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Speaker 2: you'll find when you start looking into fire investigation is,

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Speaker 2: you know, Paul Kirk wrote that book in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 2: and over time, like more and more scientists got involved

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Speaker 2: in fire investigation, but it's still like percolating throughout the field.

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Speaker 2: Like so in the early nineties, it was still a

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Speaker 2: lot of pocum involved. And I'm sure Backdraft repeated a

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Speaker 2: lot of that too.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that the whole character was sort of, you know,

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Speaker 1: that mystical guy who understood fire, you know, more than anyone. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Another big thing happened in the early nineties besides the

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Speaker 1: movie Backdraft in nineteen ninety one was the Oakland black Hole,

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Speaker 1: a big fire in Oakland, California, that destroyed about close

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Speaker 1: to three thousand homes. But it was a really good

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Speaker 1: chance to go in there as a fire investigator and

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Speaker 1: kind of see what happened. They looked at fifty different

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Speaker 1: houses and they found, you know, sort of the normal

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Speaker 1: things that you might find when you're thinking arson. But

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Speaker 1: one of the big things they found was that crazing

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Speaker 1: on the glass. They did some experimentation with that glass

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Speaker 1: and they found they basically said that this whole notion

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Speaker 1: that crazing is because of arson isn't true at all.

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Speaker 1: It's when they spray the windows with that water and

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Speaker 1: it's at a really high heat that it cools super fast.

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Speaker 1: That's where you're going to get it. And this is

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Speaker 1: one of those that seemed really like they should have

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Speaker 1: known this earlier, just because people have been blowing glass

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Speaker 1: and working with glass for so long. I'm surprised someone

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Speaker 1: didn't know that before that.

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Speaker 2: They know that was a finding from the Oakland black Hole.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they like, it wasn't one glass maker that was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: by the way, if you get it wet, that happens.

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Speaker 2: These these like this industry or field doesn't even listen

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Speaker 2: to Supreme Court or other court rulings. They're not going

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Speaker 2: to listen to some glass blower.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. Those are as hippie tippy as it comes.

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Speaker 2: The other thing about that Oakland black Hole opportunity, because

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Speaker 2: you like, they knew what caused the fire. They knew

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Speaker 2: for a fact it wasn't arson in these houses. They

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Speaker 2: were originally planning on examining a hundred houses, but the

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Speaker 2: features and characteristics that they found were so uniform that

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Speaker 2: they stopped at fifty. The group agreed, like, we're not

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Speaker 2: going to learn anything from another fifty of them. We

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Speaker 2: totally got this like it's that repeatable, like like this

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Speaker 2: is what happens when a flashover occurs. All these telltale

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Speaker 2: signs of arson are totally made up. Yeah, I say,

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Speaker 2: we take a break, Chuck, and we'll come back and

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Speaker 2: we'll talk a little more about arson investigation. So there

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Speaker 2: were a couple more like huge landmarks I guess in

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Speaker 2: the late eighties or mid eighties, early nineties as far

359
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Speaker 2: that really pushed arson and fire investigation forward. One was

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Speaker 2: a terrible hotel fire from New Year's Eve nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: six in I think San Juan, Puerto Rico at the

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Speaker 2: DuPont Plaza Hotel, which I think was a Sheridan at

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Speaker 2: the time. The hotel was in a dispute with its

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Speaker 2: workers over union contract, and some disgruntled workers set a

365
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Speaker 2: bunch of furniture on fire in one of the ballrooms

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Speaker 2: and ended up killing like ninety eight people. The fire

367
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Speaker 2: spread really quick. The reason why this is such a

368
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Speaker 2: landmark is because some people armed with all this data

369
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Speaker 2: that things like the calorimeter had produced, came in and

370
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:25,399
Speaker 2: added creating computer models, and essentially what they found was

371
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Speaker 2: their computer could show that this fire happened exactly as

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Speaker 2: the witnesses said it did and ultimately led back to

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Speaker 2: the origin, which was those three disgruntled dudes in the

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Speaker 2: ballroom setting the furniture on fire.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So the problem though, as you mentioned, is that

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Speaker 1: you're not going to get these two scientists from the

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Speaker 1: Center for Fire Research on every case of every burnt

378
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Speaker 1: house in the United States. So it's you know, that

379
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Speaker 1: was one of the biggest problems. I guess. One big

380
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Speaker 1: milestone was the Lime Street fire in nineteen ninety. This

381
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Speaker 1: is another case where it's really sad. There was a

382
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Speaker 1: guy named Jerald Lewis and Jacksonville, Florida. He was charged

383
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Speaker 1: with arson and murder for setting his house on fire,

384
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Speaker 1: killing his wife, her pregnant sister, and four kids and

385
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Speaker 1: got out with his son. No one else was able

386
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Speaker 1: to get out, and he said, hey, my son started

387
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Speaker 1: this fire. He's playing with matches on the couch in

388
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Speaker 1: the living room and arson investigators came in and said,

389
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Speaker 1: you know, in the traditional way, and we're like, no,

390
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:33,720
Speaker 1: there's no way there was an accelerant here. There's that

391
00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 1: puddle char on the floor. That v pattern that we

392
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Speaker 1: talked about, which should you know, literally point to the

393
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Speaker 1: source of the fire is not pointing at that couch,

394
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Speaker 1: and this is a big case. Prosecutors called on called

395
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Speaker 1: in a guy named John Linidi from Georgia. He was

396
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:55,399
Speaker 1: a fire investigator and John Dehan, who wrote or co

397
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 1: wrote at least a manual on fire investigation, to basically

398
00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:01,320
Speaker 1: come in and say, hey, can you come in here

399
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:04,200
Speaker 1: and confirm that this guy's lying so we can put

400
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Speaker 1: him away. And Lintidi walked away from that investigation and said, well,

401
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 1: at first he looks like he's guilty to me, so

402
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 1: I can confirm that you should go ahead and prosecute.

403
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 1: But then they got a chance, and it seems like

404
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:24,400
Speaker 1: these opportunities are a real big thing in fire, where like, hey,

405
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 1: we actually have a little bit of money to run

406
00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:30,360
Speaker 1: an experiment here. And that is when they recreated this

407
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,760
Speaker 1: house right down to the kind of couch it was

408
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Speaker 1: and everything that was in the house basically and set

409
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Speaker 1: that couch on fire to see if it would burn

410
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Speaker 1: like that, and it did.

411
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the prosecution spent twenty thousand dollars to recreate that

412
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Speaker 2: fire in a house like two or one or two

413
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:52,199
Speaker 2: houses down that was exactly identical in structure to the

414
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Speaker 2: one that Gerald Lewis had been accused of burning down

415
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Speaker 2: and I mean they went all out to recreate it,

416
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:02,080
Speaker 2: so much so that they brought some family members in

417
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 2: and said, does this look like what the house looked

418
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 2: like in the night of the fire, And they said, yes,

419
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 2: this is it. Like it's like, I'm it's eerie. So

420
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 2: they started by setting the couch on fire, like basically

421
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 2: trying out Lewis's account of events, and everybody involved in

422
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,919
Speaker 2: this experiment just expected the fire to kind of like

423
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 2: maybe start to slowly catch and then sputter and go out,

424
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Speaker 2: like the sofa was not just going to catch. So

425
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 2: they were all really surprised when the fire caught and

426
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 2: then caught the other cushion on fire, and then all

427
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 2: of a sudden caught the like a big portion of

428
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 2: the room on fire. That was the first thing. And

429
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,680
Speaker 2: then after the fire really burned and they evaluated everything,

430
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 2: they were like, all of these things that are supposedly

431
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 2: arson related, they're here, like this is this the couch setting.

432
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Speaker 2: The couch being set on fire produced all of those

433
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 2: things that as being used as evidence against this guy.

434
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this was a huge chaine for

435
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: Lin Tidi personally as an investigator. He was basically like

436
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: he said, I had an epiphany, you know, almost in

437
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: a guy to die based on these theories that were

438
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 1: a load of crap, was his quote. So that not

439
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 1: only sort of changed his way of thinking, it started

440
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: a change in the industry. But like you mentioned earlier,

441
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: one of the problems is is that getting that stuff

442
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: to trickle down to the local, you know, level, is

443
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,679
Speaker 1: really really hard, especially in a profession where they seemed

444
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: really really kind of stuck in these old methods of

445
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: the like i'll just call it the de Niro.

446
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 2: Way, that's a great, great name, and it.

447
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 1: Was really hard to get that information. Even if they

448
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 1: got the information, a lot of them were still like, now,

449
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a science. It is a lot

450
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: of intuition, so much so that in nineteen ninety seven

451
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: the International Association of Arts Investigators argued against the Supreme Court.

452
00:24:57,240 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: There was something called the Dalbert Standard, which basically said

453
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three that like, hey, the scientific method

454
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,239
Speaker 1: has to be used if you're an expert testifying at

455
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: a trial. And they said, no, no, no, that's great,

456
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: but not for us, because this isn't a science and

457
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: we should be exempted from that.

458
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was nineteen ninety seven. Paul Kirk wrote the

459
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 2: book in nineteen sixty nine. Everybody remember, and so you'd think, okay,

460
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 2: surely shortly after that the industry would have come around,

461
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 2: and that's absolutely not true. In twenty eleven, the National

462
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 2: Fire Protection Association, which now puts out what's considered like

463
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 2: the gold standard manual on arson or fire investigation. Yeah,

464
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 2: back in twenty eleven, their manual said that if you

465
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,959
Speaker 2: used the process of elimination and couldn't determine what started

466
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,479
Speaker 2: a fire, you should probably go ahead and assume it

467
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:54,239
Speaker 2: was arson. So if you didn't know what the cause was,

468
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 2: go ahead into court and testify that it was probably arson,

469
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 2: and that guy should get the death penalty for murder

470
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 2: because of the people who died in the house. Yeah,

471
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, Chuck.

472
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably a good time to talk about that case.

473
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: You mentioned, the Cameron Willingham case. This is this is

474
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one. It was in December of ninety

475
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: one in the Corsicana, Texas. Cameron Willingham and Stacey Willingham

476
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: lived in this house burned down, killed their three children.

477
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: Stacy was gone at the time. It was you know,

478
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: just before Christmas, so getting Christmas presents for her kids.

479
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: Cameron said that, you know, there was so much heat

480
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,439
Speaker 1: in smoke that he tried to get his kids but

481
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: couldn't had to get out of the house and call

482
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: for help. Was you know, what he thought was the

483
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: best method. And this was one of those case where

484
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: the local fire assistant fire chief I guess Douglas Fogg,

485
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: and a guy Nammanuel Vasquez, who had a lot of experiences,

486
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: an investigator came in and identified these charring spots, what

487
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: they call poor patterns, like you poured gasoline or something.

488
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: The the patterns that they saw, which is where the

489
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: fires are supposedly started, they found in the hallway where

490
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: the kid's bedroom wasn't at the front door, like this

491
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: was clearly someone trying to trap people inside. And this

492
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: guy did it.

493
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that essentially he started by pouring accelerant and the

494
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 2: kid's bedroom, walked backwards out of the hall while still

495
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 2: pouring accelerant, and then all the way to the front

496
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 2: door and then let a match. And this Vasquez guy,

497
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 2: if he wasn't, if he wasn't one of the people

498
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 2: that de Niro hung out with, I will be really

499
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,479
Speaker 2: surprised because from what you are describing him, from what

500
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 2: I've read, he's exactly that kind of guy.

501
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: His work, I mean, it was not ninety one. He

502
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: probably was.

503
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 2: His work was later criticized, like when we said that

504
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 2: it's been described as mysticism. They were talking about this

505
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 2: guy's report on the Willingham case. And he had tons

506
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 2: of experience, so he was very ry, widely respected in

507
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 2: the field of fire investigation, something like twelve hundred or

508
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 2: fourteen hundred fires under his belt as an investigator. The

509
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 2: thing that sends a red flag up about him is

510
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 2: he said most of them were arson. There's nowhere on

511
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 2: the planet where some high percentage of fires like that

512
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 2: is actually arson. Maybe Detroit in the nineties, maybe Detroit,

513
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 2: but certainly not just in Texas in general, right where

514
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: this guy was working. So he was apparently one of

515
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 2: those people. He died in nineteen ninety four, but he

516
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 2: was apparently one of those investigators who started backwards from

517
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 2: this was arson or I see that telltale sign of arson.

518
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: So now I have to figure out what else supports

519
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 2: that theory, And he did, and his report was very damning.

520
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 2: It was very convincing, and it helped put Cameron Willingham away.

521
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 2: There were some other things that the prosecution used about

522
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 2: Cameron Willingham, that is super early nineties, late eighties Texas.

523
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 2: He had an Iron Maiden poster in the utility room

524
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 2: that can I play with madness poster you know where

525
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 2: like somebody's punching through Eddie's head.

526
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 1: I don't know the post.

527
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 2: That's true, looking up, it's.

528
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: A work of art. Okay.

529
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 2: He had the fact that he had an iron Man

530
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 2: poster up meant that he was interested in death and

531
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: probably involved in Satanism, Like he had a tattoo with

532
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 2: a skull with a snake around it. So obviously he

533
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 2: was a killer of children and their whole their whole premise,

534
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 2: their whole theory was that he had killed murdered his

535
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: two one year old daughters and one two year old

536
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 2: daughter by fire because they were getting in the way

537
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 2: of his lifestyle of like hanging out and drinking and

538
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 2: going out. And he was prosecuted and ended up in

539
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 2: two thousand and four receiving the death penalty, And most

540
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 2: people who are familiar with the case point to it

541
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 2: and say, this is a clear example of an innocent

542
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 2: person being executed.

543
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: That's right. In two thousand and four is many years later. Obviously,

544
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: he was scheduled for execution, and a guy named Gerald Hurst,

545
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: who was an investigator who had gotten some previous charges

546
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: dropped against someone else in a similar case. Some people

547
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: got together who were, you know, supporting Willingham and said, hey,

548
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: you know you're you're the best at getting someone off.

549
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: You don't think he did this? Can you help? He

550
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: went in and said, well, first of all, the report

551
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 1: from Vasquez, the first line says, in order to kill fire,

552
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: you have to love it a little bit. And that's

553
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: just that's just weird. It's a red flag. No. He

554
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: looked in and saw a lot of issues with their work.

555
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: First of all, the assumption that only and this is

556
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: one of the big ones, like only an accelerant could

557
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: have caused a fire this hot. That's one that you

558
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: see or used to see at least a lot in

559
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: arson investigations, like it had to be gasoline or something

560
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: because it was so hot. The craze glass again, that's

561
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: another one. We've already been over that. And then he

562
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: started just looking at the account. The more he looked

563
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: at it, he was like, you know what this seems

564
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 1: like it really or the evidence. He said, the more

565
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: I look at this, this looks like it really matches

566
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: up with his account of what happened. The other thing

567
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: we didn't mention too is that they found mineral spirits

568
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: at the house and when Hirst looked into it, he

569
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: was like, this mineral spirit they found was on the

570
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: front porch by the by the grill, and that's what

571
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: he used it for, right, So like that's not a

572
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: piece of evidence.

573
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 2: No, So this guy, this investigator, gerald Hurst, just completely

574
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 2: demolished the evidence that was used to convict and eventually

575
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 2: execute Cameron Willingham. But the Board of Parole and Pardons

576
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 2: is like they got the report and they apparently didn't

577
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 2: open it and voted to uphold the conviction and execution

578
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 2: and so like this is a this is I think

579
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 2: when the Innocence Project was just starting. I don't even

580
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 2: know if they'd come around by this time. The problem

581
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 2: the problem with Arson cases because other people have gotten

582
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: off thanks to people like gerald Hurst who've come back

583
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 2: and been like hey, hey, hey, like criminal courts aren't

584
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 2: super savvy, and you're still listening to Arson investigators who

585
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 2: don't who are using folklore on the stand to convict people.

586
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,719
Speaker 2: Here's an actual scientific analysis of what the evidence shows,

587
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 2: like it can get people off, but it's so not

588
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 2: a smoking gun like DNA evidence is. Instead, it's there's

589
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 2: a different interpretation, and it's quite possible it wasn't arson.

590
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: And is that enough to reverse a conviction and set

591
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 2: somebody free from prison. Not necessarily, So it's still kind

592
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 2: of like a there's still plenty of people probably who

593
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 2: were convicted of arson on junk science that are still

594
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 2: in prison. I guess what I'm trying to say.

595
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 1: All right, should we we need to take another break, right,

596
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: I think so, all right, let's take another break. We'll

597
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: talk about where we are today with Urson investigation. Like

598
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: truly things have changed.

599
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 2: Right, surely?

600
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: All right, So you know, if you follow the news there,

601
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: you can you can see a lot of I guess

602
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: ground being gained as far as overturning convictions on arson.

603
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: But it's a tough one, like you were talking about

604
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: before their break, it's you know, it's hard to get overturned.

605
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: A lot of the evidence has just gone obviously because

606
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: it was a fire, or maybe the investigation to begin with,

607
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: was it done well and stuff wasn't saved. So it's

608
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: just it's a hard thing to get overturned, even with

609
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: the new science that we have these days. It's not

610
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 1: like a lot of other cases. There's the NFPA nine

611
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: Colon Guide for Fire and Explosive Investigation, which this was

612
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 1: published in nineteen ninety two to begin with, and this

613
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: is the gold standard you're talking about.

614
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's the gold standard now. It's also i

615
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 2: think the same manual that said just assume it's arson

616
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 2: if you can't figure out what started it.

617
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: Well, they've been updating it obviously every year, which is

618
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: what they do with guides like this. They just i

619
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: guess ripped a lot of pages out and this is

620
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: sort of it's a book, though that's not as much.

621
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 1: It's aimed more toward like surance companies and law firms

622
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: because a lot of this stuff is like a lot

623
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: of times when you see something really investigated or reversed,

624
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: it's because of a big civil case against like a

625
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 1: drapery manufacturer or something that's getting sued because their their

626
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: curtains went up, you know, too fast or something, and

627
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: so they had the kind of money to pour into

628
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: a defense that wouldn't happen in a criminal trial.

629
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, so over time, civil courts have become way more

630
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 2: savvy as far as fire investigation goes as on the whole,

631
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 2: compared to criminal courts. In criminal courts, it's still very

632
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:12,240
Speaker 2: possible that kind of pretty poor evidence can be admitted

633
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 2: and used against somebody. And that's not just the courts

634
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 2: who are at fault, like it's the investigators themselves who

635
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 2: are at this point resistant to change. If you're not

636
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 2: getting on board with the idea that science is showing, like, yes,

637
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff that's wrong with traditional arson

638
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 2: investigation or fire investigation. You're just you're you're you're resisting now.

639
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 2: There's just it's been disseminated too widely for too long.

640
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 2: And I mean, I guess I can understand where that

641
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:47,320
Speaker 2: resistance comes from. Because all this what your training was

642
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 2: handed down from people who had decades of experience and

643
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 2: knew what they were talking about, and you venerated them

644
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 2: because they were an old veteran of the fire department

645
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 2: or something like that. Your beliefs are now being challenged

646
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 2: or intuition is being derided as superstition in folklore, and

647
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 2: you're probably being treated like a bumpkin. And then you

648
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 2: also probably believe that these eggheads are freeing convicted arsonists

649
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,319
Speaker 2: from prison or trying to at least, So what the

650
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 2: hell's going on the world is topsy turvy upside down?

651
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 2: I don't like, I'm not DeNiro, I've hung out with

652
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 2: any arson investigators, but I would suspect based on everything

653
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 2: I've read, that that would account for any resistance or

654
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 2: pockets of resistance that are still left.

655
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say so probably, And you know what,

656
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: it's probably one of the things that as people age

657
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:43,439
Speaker 1: out and retire, the new generation, a better understanding will

658
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: probably you know, probably be the one in the forefront,

659
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: I would hope. So we'll talk a little bit about

660
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: how you can actually find the origin point of a

661
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: fire in a more scientific way. It's a tough thing,

662
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: obviously to find where a fire started once a fire

663
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: has like fully burned down a house. There have been studies,

664
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: even though it was one cited by Beattie and Oliva Oliva, Oliva,

665
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: Sure you don't need that if a fire started to

666
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: burn for just three minutes after the flashover happened, that

667
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 1: investigators basically couldn't tell what quadrant of a room, not

668
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: even like the very spot, but even what quadrant that

669
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: the fire originated in any better than chance, right three

670
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: minutes after the flashover. Yeah, but so all this to say,

671
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: it's really really hard to do, oh.

672
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 2: For sure, because the flashover again, it's full involvement the

673
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 2: entire rooms on fire. They did say that within if

674
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 2: the fires put out within thirty seconds of flashover, they're

675
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 2: right about eighty four percent of the time.

676
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: Big difference.

677
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 2: That is a big difference. But they have found that

678
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 2: there are some reliable ways of tracing the origin of

679
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 2: fires or seeing the source of fires. Right, So if

680
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 2: the V shape I don't think we ever said that

681
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,320
Speaker 2: V shaped char that used to be considered to literally

682
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 2: point to the source of the fire, those form were opposite.

683
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:19,359
Speaker 2: Where an oxygen source enters in a a flashover room

684
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 2: or room that's in flashover, it just forms that, right.

685
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 2: Or They also found that like puddling, those puddle marks

686
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 2: poor marks that clearly show accelerate those curtains on fire

687
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 2: from that drape manufacturer, when they fall and hit the

688
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 2: ground and burn, they can leave the same kind of marks. Right,

689
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 2: So if you have all these confusing signs that just

690
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 2: don't make sense anymore, how do you find the source

691
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 2: of a fire? And as I was saying, they have

692
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,479
Speaker 2: established there are some that are just genuinely tell tale

693
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 2: and they might not say this is arson, but they

694
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 2: can kind of lead you to where the origin of

695
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:56,239
Speaker 2: a fire was and hopefully you can figure it out

696
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 2: from there.

697
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. One way is to look at the

698
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:04,320
Speaker 1: bodies of victims. It's obviously a very sad way to

699
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: investigate something, but you have to do it. And they

700
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: have found that people if you're really really close to

701
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: the fire, you know, I think most people think like, oh, no,

702
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: you don't die from the fire, you die from a

703
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide poisoning. That is true if you were further

704
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: away from the fire. If you were very close to

705
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: that fire, you usually die. You die from edema, in

706
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 1: which the airwaves of your body swell up from the

707
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: heat and your organs shut down from the heat, which

708
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,479
Speaker 1: is I gotta imagine a terrible, terrible way to go, right.

709
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 2: So, depending on the arrangement of the bodies throughout like

710
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 2: a house, you can kind of trace who was closer

711
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 2: to the origin of the fire, the source of the.

712
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:47,720
Speaker 1: Fire, right or at least where it was, you know, hottest, right, okay,

713
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:49,760
Speaker 1: which isn't always where it started as we know.

714
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 2: Know that's true. There's another one called arcing that's pretty interesting.

715
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 2: As a fire melts the insulation on wires in the house,

716
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 2: like the electrical wire, the electricity can jump from one

717
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 2: exposed wire to another and it causes an arc the

718
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: and that's a you can tell that just by looking

719
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 2: at and two electrical wires where an arc happened. That

720
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 2: can only happen while the power's on, So you can

721
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 2: actually kind of say, okay, this arc happened at this

722
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:23,799
Speaker 2: point in the fire because the power went out at

723
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 2: this point or we turned the power off at this point,

724
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: so this arc couldn't have happened after that, which helps

725
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 2: walk you backward toward the origin point of the fire

726
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 2: or the direction of yeah, timing wise.

727
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: They also have just a great database now. It's called

728
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: the Ignitable Liquid's Reference Collection Database or the il RCD.

729
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: Not bad, didn't spell anything, but that's fine thing. And

730
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 1: that's basically if you find just any flammable liquid at

731
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 1: the fire site, then you can descend it to the

732
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: lab and they can at least tell you what it is.

733
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:02,320
Speaker 2: Right. There's also guidelines now for people who aren't fire

734
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 2: investigators but are likely going to be the first people

735
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 2: on the scene, like firefighters or ems, that kind of thing,

736
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 2: And it's just stuff to be on the lookout for

737
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 2: so that you can you can tell fire investigators later

738
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 2: what you saw. Really? Yeah, what do they have? An

739
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 2: iron main poster? That's one You had to move a

740
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 2: refrigerator to open a door to vent the fire or

741
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 2: something like that. Was the refrigerator plugged in? Was the

742
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 2: appliance turned on this space heater that we think might

743
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 2: have been the cause? Was it in the honor off position?

744
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 2: When you show up to a scene, are you seeing

745
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 2: somebody who you've seen other scenes? And firefighters are like, yes,

746
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 2: I have the paramedic did it right? Like no, no, no,

747
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 2: like in the crowd, like not working the fire like

748
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 2: somebody who's in the crowd and they're like, oh, no,

749
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 2: I haven't seen Anyboddy.

750
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. If there were any like

751
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: electrical line issue that you could see or whether or

752
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: like if you see you know, a big winds cause

753
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: a treat to fall nearby or something. Those are kind

754
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: of obvious things, but again these are for non investigators.

755
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 2: What's another one another one keeping track of what people

756
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 2: who are witnesses or who were in the house or

757
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 2: the structure when it caught fire are saying and telling you, right,

758
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 2: especially if they say something like the paramedic did it.

759
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, I got. I got interviewed one time by

760
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: a fire investigator. What Yeah, I kind of forgot about this.

761
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: My brother and I we used to love exploring sort

762
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: of abandoned homes and things. No, no, no, although I

763
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: did have a little fire thing for a little while.

764
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people go through that phase.

765
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: Nothing big, just like you know, I'm going to set

766
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: this stick on fire in the woods. Very dangerous though,

767
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 1: even though nothing happened by the get clear. Yeah, there

768
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: was a abandoned shed across the street from us. It

769
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: was a house that people moved out. New people moved

770
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 1: in and built a really big house, but left this

771
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: old shed and we had been in it exploring and

772
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: it was just just full of junk, and we as

773
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:20,879
Speaker 1: a young child I was I was probably like ten

774
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: years old, was quizzed by the uh. I guess the

775
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: cops a couple of weeks later, my brother and I

776
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 1: because it turns out that the people said that there

777
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: were a lot of really expensive things in there, and

778
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: it was a big insurance playing and I think he

779
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: burned it down and said there was a bunch of

780
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: expensive stuff and he was I believe looking back, he

781
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: was thwarted by those darn kids.

782
00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 2: Wow.

783
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 1: And no, we didn't take our dog in there, but

784
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: I remember just that was like, no, man, there was

785
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: a mannequin and a bunch of files and just some

786
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: frame pictures. It was junk. It was junk.

787
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 2: You're like, I remember the mannequin Bekis Scott pretended to

788
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 2: kiss it. I think he actually did kiss it.

789
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't remember. We never had to

790
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: like go into quart or anything. So I'll have to

791
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: ask my mom kind of what happened with that. But

792
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 1: just remember that.

793
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, what a great anecdote, dude, to end this with.

794
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that. So I made it all up.

795
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 2: That's fine, we'll edit that out. I guess. I guess

796
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 2: the upshot of this is, if you know a fire

797
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 2: investigator and arson investigator, give him a hug and say,

798
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 2: let's stick to the science. If you want to know

799
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 2: more about that kind of thing, go out and research.

800
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:37,439
Speaker 2: There's a lot of really interesting stuff to read about

801
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,760
Speaker 2: Arson investigation, and you could definitely do worse than reading

802
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 2: David Grand's Trial by Fire in the New Yorker and

803
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:51,719
Speaker 2: Douglas Stars article in Discover magazine. Think a spark of science,

804
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 2: maybe something like that. Check it out. Oh that means

805
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 2: the time for listener mail. Sorry, I fell down on

806
00:44:57,880 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 2: my duties.

807
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: That's right, brutalism follow up here. Hey guys. While listening

808
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: to that episode, I was delighted at the mention of

809
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: Habitat sixty seven. As a McGill student, Habitat sixty seven

810
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: has been touched on in a number of my classes,

811
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: especially because this architectural staple in Montreal was designed by

812
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: McGill alumni Mosha Safti. I wanted to share a fun

813
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:24,640
Speaker 1: fact about the development of Habitat that I learned in

814
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: art history a few years ago. During the design process,

815
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: Safety use Lego blocks to help him model the building design.

816
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: In fact, he used so many Lego blocks that he

817
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: bought out all of the legos at a number of

818
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: Montreal toy stores. Pretty fun anyway, Thanks Roby, do you guys?

819
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know was always my first podcast recommendation

820
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:49,279
Speaker 1: to others and has helped me become a more inquisitive

821
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 1: person over the last few years. So keep up the

822
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 1: good work. And that is from Kestrel Musculman.

823
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 2: Great name, great name for sure, Thanks for that story.

824
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 2: We appreciate it. The great leg shortage of sixty something

825
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 2: in Montreal. If you want to get in touch with

826
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 2: us like Kestrel did man that is a great name,

827
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 2: you can email us. Send us an email to Stuff

828
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

829
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

830
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:23,400
Speaker 1: more podcasts Myheartradio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

831
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.