Importance of Investigation / Classification Types
The discovery of the cause of a fire can allow for future fires to be avoided or lessened and for ruling out or confirming the existence of a crime (arson). The fire cause determination process is a forensic science that starts with the observations of the firefighters on-scene and ends with the classification of the fire, i.e., suspicious, accidental, undetermined, arson. If the fire is classified as arson, a combined fire/police effort is made to identify the person, or persons responsible, and prosecute.