May 26, 2023|Litigation
A report is only the visible portion of the iceberg in fire and explosion investigations. Less attention is paid to reports than to an investigation by the author and intended audience. “ The fire investigator’s report may be the single most important pence of documentary evidence.”
It is of passing interest that both language and fire are considered by many as the most important of men’s complex and evolutionary discoveries and that despite the absence of the violation of a single standard, the Titanic still disappeared beneath the waves because of an iceberg. Similarly, the content of a report dictates the course and destiny of a fire and explosion investigation.
Fire and explosion investigation is a complex process involving knowledge spanning several disciplines. While a report may be prepared for any number of reasons, its primary purpose is to identify and describe where a fire or explosion began (i.e. its origin), what caused it, and responsibility, (who or what was accountable for its damage.)
Every report should be considered an expert report. A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of the fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue, the testimony is the product of reliable properties and methods, and the expert reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.
NFPA 921 defines “area” in different ways. A fire area is defined as the “boundary of fire effects within a scene in which the area fire origin will be located”. It further defines an area of origin as a structure, part of a structure, or general location within a fire scene, in which the ’point of fire origin’ of a fire or explosion is reasonably believed to be located and the point of origin as the physical location with the area of origin where a heat source, a fuel, and oxidizing agent fire interact, resulting in a fire or explosion.
Fire Cause is defined as the circumstances conditions or agencies that bring together an ignition source, or oxidizer (such as oxygen) resulting a in fire or a combustion explosion.
Responsibility is defined as the accountability of a person or other entity for the event or sequence of events that caused the fire or explosion spread of the fire.
Reports should be developed and written in the same manner and sequence that a fire or explosion is conducted. Each step provides a foundation for the one that follows.
While NFPA 921 and NFPA 1033 span these topics, little is said about what a report should contain or how it should be presented. The purpose of this article is to address what should be contained in a fire or explosion report, how it should best be presented, and what forces are at work that shape it.
While NFPA 921 does not prescribe or require a specific ‘format’ or content, it does identify the purpose of a written report, recommends a framework for its organization, and suggests a minimum scope for its content.
NFPA 921 approaches reports generally and begins by stating their purpose is to document an accurate reflection of the observations, activities, analyses, and conclusions. The guidelines of NPFA 921 state as a minimum, a report should: contain
- · Facts and data the investigator relied upon to reach any opinions or conclusions.
- · The investigator’s reasoning for how each opinion or conclusion was arrived at. used
- · Not just cited.
NFPA 921 either assumes but does a poor job or does not define the type of data expressed in reports leaving this distinction to the author, his employer, and the reader to decipher its relative importance. Every sentence in a report is comprised of one type of data. This includes:
· Facts – Anything perceived through the senses. Generally based on observation and accepted as true unless challenged.
· Opinions – A view or judgment formed about something not necessarily based on facts or knowledge.
· Conclusions – A judgment resulting from a process and reached after deliberation. All final hypotheses are drawn according to the principles expressed in NFPA 921 and reported appropriately.
· Expert opinions – A belief, judgment, or conclusion reached or given by a person who has comprehensive and authoritative knowledge. In a particular area after the systematic application of an acceptable methodology to the information facts and evidence examined.
Framework of Written Reports.
Not all reports are NFPA 921 and NFPA 1033 based but most claim or assert adherence to their requirements. The format and content of the report will depend in part on the needs of the organization or client on whose behalf the investigation was performed but generally revolves around the origin, cause, and responsibility for a fire. The client determines and decides whether a report is to be written and its content based on their need and instruction. While a conclusion from more than one expert can be contained in a report, the better choice is for each expert to prepare a separate report that presents their own opinions and conclusions and the basis for them.
Requirements of NFPA 921 and NFPA 1033
Nature or intent of the report – Preliminary, Interim, Final, Summary, Supplemental, Final. Letter Reports are client driven to meet specific client needs and do not meet the legal requirements of NFPA 921/1033.
- · The date the report was submitted (i.e. written).
- · Date, time, and location of the loss.
- · The date and location of any examination (s)
- · Name of person requesting the report
- · Scope of the investigation (tasks assigned and completed)
·Conclusions (i.e.) Facts and data the investigator relied upon to reach any opinions or conclusions and the reasoning for how each.
Although no specific format is required by NFPA 921 for reports, the provisions of NFPA 1033, make these a requirement and mandate their acceptance. Additionally, there are legal considerations (e. g Rule 26(a)(2)(B) concerning court-mandated reports. The Federal Rules of Procedure require experts who will be called trial witnesses to prepare reports, which may form the basis for cross-examination during the witness’s deposition or trial testimony. The judge of a particular matter has the authority to determine whether the above criteria or met.
The conclusions of most fire or explosion reports are, at least potentially, expert opinions to be accepted by the judge and jury of the court in which they are submitted. As a result, every report should be considered an expert report. Additional requirements of all reports in the federal system:
- ·Name of who prepared the report
- · A list of materials review and investigative activities that are conducted.
- · A list of opinions the expert intends to express at trial.
- · A list of publications by the expert in the last 10 years.
- · A list of testimony given either at trial or in a deposition for the last 4 years.
- · The compensation the witness received for his or her work.
REVIEW
The quality of a report is initially dependent on the organization requesting and dictating it and the persons reviewing it. Ultimately, however, It is the technical review of reports that takes place before a report’s release that determines its value and impact before it is judged in the final arena by one’s peers after its release.
Technical and administrative reviews are meant to guarantee adherence to acceptable standards and within the scope of the investigator’s instructions. It is not unusual for an organization to perform either a technical or administrative review. A proper technical review must include access to the same documentation available to the initial investigator.
The crucial test for a report is that it contains sufficient information that would allow an independent reviewer to arrive at a similar, if not the same, conclusion. At the end of the day, the report and its conclusions must stand up to the reasonable examination of others through a peer review in a court of law.
Reviews:
Are part of a broader process that includes the underlying investigation.
- Meet the organization’s quality assurance requirements.
- Ensure the accuracy of the conclusions.
- Are conducted without confirmation or expectation bias.
Writing Good Reports
Good reports possess chronology, language, elucidation, analysis, and reinforcement, In other words, they are CLEAR.
CHRONOLOGY– Good reports do not come from divine inspiration but rather from planning, organization, critical thinking (i.e. logic), and language. A good report simply starts at the beginning and ends at the end. The reader should not have to flip, turn elsewhere to turn to clarify a question, and return. The reader should not have to search for expert conclusions in a separate narrative or analysis.
LANGUAGE – Clarify for the reader and do not confuse! Language, words, and phrases used should comply with standard adopted definitions and refer to footnotes within the document for explanation.
ELUCIDATION – Feld notes, diagrams, and photographs should be used to clarify a data point or concept.
Difficult-to-understand concepts should be further explained by simpler visualizations rather than by words. A good picture is worth a thousand words.
For example, the illustration at the left clarifies an arc site involving localized damage caused by an uncapped, energized conductor that came into contact with a gas line. The graphic visualizes rather than describes to the reader what happened.
ANALYSIS – An analysis should explain how an opinion or conclusion is arrived at. The crucial test for a report is that it contains sufficient information that would allow an independent peer reviewer to arrive at a similar, if not the same, conclusion.
REINFORCE – Types of evidence – In other words, “I’m going to show you, tell you, and then tell you again what I just showed you.” A report may contain information, facts, opinions, conclusions, or expert opinions. The level of certainty expressed to us to express an expert opinion should be identified as either probable or possible and based on acceptable and identifiable methodology. Terms of art such as “to a degree of engineering certainty’ or scientific certainty should be avoided.
The Present and the Future – Templates, Boilerplates & Artificial Intelligence
Writing reports based on the analysis of a documented investigation involves time and money in the real world. Fire and explosion investigations and documentation are lengthy and complex, and the specific processes that result in a report are not necessarily efficient or cost-effective. Accordingly, much effort has been expended and invested in developing ways and means to make the process of investigating a scene and generating reporting more efficient.
Currently, templates, have been methods by which organizations have classically approached the generation of reports. This method typically involves an organization-wide acceptance of a specific format with internal references that comply with external protocols and standards (e.g. NFPA 921, NFPA 1033, ASTM standards). The approach is generally implemented through internal technical and administrative reviews and is essentially a quality control approach to ensuring the content and format of reports through review before the report is published or released.
The template technique may be replaced or supplemented with an ‘active document’ approach that automates the process by combining data extracted from the scene with the accepted internal format of the report, to produce a finished report.) Organizations may also choose to reach out to other parties who specialize in the development of reports based on these approaches attempting to balance internal and external demands.
Organizations may choose to adopt the generation of reports through external parties and incorporate them as their own
The most recent technological development, Artificial Intelligence is both the most promising and dangerous. Artificial intelligence expert systems are not widely used or tested, are limited to relatively narrow problems, cannot readily deal with ‘mixed knowledge’, cannot refine their database, may have high developmental costs, and raise legal and ethical concerns.
Artificial Intelligence – AI replicates human cognitive functions, creates algorithms that detect patterns in data, and applies these patterns to automate certain tasks.
While AI solves many of the difficult choices to be made in establishing where a particular methodology ( NFPA-921) or requirement (NFPA 1033) has been consulted and/or adhered to, it also falls short of meeting existing legal requirements in terms of its contents. In effect, the author of a report must testify under oath to the content and conclusions of a report and identify all sources of information on which they consulted or relied.
While the truth in the legal system may be determined by the vote of a jury on their assessment of the facts and evidence, Artificial Intelligence does not provide this same information. It is, however, cost-effective, overcomes writer’s block, and creates content faster than people (which is probably the biggest benefit.)
It is this author’s belief and prediction that artificial intelligence has already found its way into the current process of report writing on some levels and will continue to do so in the future. While hard to detect, clues that indicate the possible presence of Artificial Intelligence are a lack of typos. overuse of ‘the’, no cited sources, shorter sentences, a repeat of words or phrases, and lack of analysis. Problematically, the same characteristics can surface simply in either a report that is reviewed administratively or poorly written.
Summary
The format and content of a good report dictate the course and destiny of a fire and explosion investigation. Guidelines provided by existing standards and federal requirements provide a minimum base for the content for these but the adaptation of language and logic dictates its survival and success.
Don’t be naïve or believe you can brilliantly maneuver your way through a poorly performed investigation or badly prepared report. The odds may be in your favor and the risk may be low. However, it is real and it takes one failure to cause lasting damage.
Strive to be professional and exercise integrity in your work.
Use and apply only known and documented facts based on accepted scientific analysis methods appropriate to a particular problem. Conform with formally adopted professional and ethical standards and guidelines.