Mr. Schultz was awakened in the early morning hours by an explosion.  When he looked outside his master bathroom window, he saw a fire growing quickly in the garage of the new house next door that was rough-framed stage of construction.  By daybreak, the fire was extinguished and the destruction complete.  The fire department layered the remnants to quench all hot spots.  Two days later, the contractor demolished the charred remains.  Three days later, a private investigator inspected this highly disturbed scene and concluded that a linseed-oil soaked rag started the fire via spontaneous combustion.  Soon thereafter, the entire foundation was demolished and the building rebuilt.  Two years later, a law suit was filed against the painter on the scene with the allegation that he negligently started the fire.

We carefully recreated the incident scene as it was immediately prior to the fire by carefully reviewing early-morning photographs taken before the layering began, creating as-built plans, and carefully reviewing witness testimony.  We researched & tested various materials for their ability to spontaneously combust.  And we modeled the expected fire growth rate and linked it to observations of witnesses.

We determined that there was – and could be - no evidence of linseed oil soaked rags at the fire’s origin; that three professionals had specifically inspected the origin area prior to the fire for linseed oil soaked rags; that there were breaches in the security fence around the property with a trail leading towards a neighboring empty house in which squatters were living; that no testing for arson-linked accelerants were – or could be - performed near the origin; that no material known to be near the origin had a tendency to spontaneously combust; and, given the evidence, that the likelihood of arson was greater than spontaneous combustion of a linseed oil soaked rag.