Most of us have seen a house or building destroyed by fire – in real life or in pictures – and know there is usually very little left among the ashes. Fire can erase its own trail, turning the task of figuring out what happened into a complex puzzle with missing pieces. Understanding how or why a fire started goes beyond appeasing our curiosity. It’s part of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services’ role. DFES’ Fire Investigator Mark Hayes takes us beneath the rubble and into the world of fire investigation – where every clue matters and no scorch mark goes unnoticed.
Most of us have seen a house or building destroyed by fire – in real life or in pictures – and know there is usually very little left among the ashes.
Fire can erase its own trail, turning the task of figuring out what happened into a complex puzzle with missing pieces.
Understanding how or why a fire started goes beyond appeasing our curiosity.
It’s part of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services’ role.
DFES’ Fire Investigator Mark Hayes takes us beneath the rubble and into the world of fire investigation – where every clue matters and no scorch mark goes unnoticed.
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Credits:
Host and producer: Silvana Pulitano
Guest: Mark Hayes
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Transcript:
For a full transcript of this episode, visit: https://bit.ly/45SdBSs
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This episode may contain reference to traumatic events. Listener discretion is advised.
Visit https://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/copyright for copyright information.
[Silvana Pulitano, Podcast Host] You're listening to Mics and Sirens, the official podcast of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services in Western Australia. DFES acknowledges the traditional owners on the land on which this podcast is created, the Whadjuk people.
[Sirens sound while news footage of fires play]
[Mark Hayes, DFES Fire Investigator] When I go to work, I'm meeting people possibly on the worst day of their lives. They've just lost everything that they own. You know, I get that question. Is it like CSI? No it's not. They're bombs waiting to go off. People don't have any idea how dangerous they are. It's going to keep fireys busy for the next 30 years, put it that way. That's the million-dollar question. If we knew that, we'd be able to stop them from catching fire.
[Silvana] Most of us have seen a house or building destroyed by fire, in real life or in pictures. And we know there's very little left among the ashes. But fire doesn't just destroy what we see. It can erase its own trail, turning the task of figuring out what happened into a complex puzzle with missing pieces. Understanding how or why a fire started goes beyond appeasing our curiosity. It can help prevent future fires, uncover signs of arson, and shape important community safety messages. A fire investigator is the one called in, part scientist, part detective, to consider all the evidence and piece together the story that a fire will leave behind.
Today I'm joined by Mark Hayes, a District Officer from DFES' Fire Investigation and Analysis Unit, who's going to take us beneath the rubble and into the world of fire investigation, where every clue matters and no scorch mark goes unnoticed. Mark, thanks for joining me.
[Mark] Welcome.
[Silvana] There's a lot I've always wanted to know about what a fire investigator does. You know, you've got the things that you see on TV and you sort of imagine what a fire investigator does. But I should start by asking you, what do you do in your role?
[Mark] Well, basically, it's in the name. We investigate the cause and origin of a fire.
[Silvana] So when are you called out? At what point of the incident are you called out?
[Mark] It varies depending on the Incident Controller. If they sort of get there early and determine that they're not going to be able to work out the cause of the fire, then they'll give us a ring. Sometimes it's at the end of the fire. They've made up, and they're cleaning up all their gear and they go, "Oh, we're not gonna be able to work this one out. So let's call the fire investigator."
[Silvana] Okay. And so why? At what point is sort of the best point for you to come in? What's more favourable in terms of your investigation for you to be brought in?
[Mark] Oh, when the fire's still active.
[Silvana] And what why is that so beneficial?
[Mark] We're able to see where the fire has moved. So by the time we get the call, the fire has moved away from where it started. So we're able to get a bit of an idea on that. We can interview crews as well. So they'll give us an idea of what they saw when they arrived. So it gives us a bit of a start point.
[Silvana] Do you have a big toolkit when you go out to incidents, or is it just yourself and a camera? What do you go out with?
[Mark] Oh, these days it's just an iPad, and a camera.
[Silvana] And so, what are you looking for?
[Mark] Well, fire will move away from its area of origin simply because of the way that fire moves. So we look - we work from an area of least destruction to an area of most destruction. And we can then track how the fire's moved through a structure. Yeah. So there's a northeast, southeast, southwest, southeast quadrant of a room, and we'll pick that most damaged part of that room. And invariably 99% of the time that's where the fire has started. There's a lot of variables that that are involved in being able to track that. So, when did a window break? Was the window that broke, did it have prevailing wind behind it? Because that will then move the fire unnaturally through a room. So we have to have a look at all of these variables before we even go, "Yeah, okay. This area here is where we're looking." And then we start digging it out.
So we start from the - nine times out of ten, a tiled roof. The tiles are on the ground, so we've got to move them out the way. Then we've got to move the timbers out the way. Then the plaster out the way. Then the wall plaster out the way. Remnant furniture until we can get to an area of lowest point of burning. And then we find out what was in that area of origin. We'll locate the remnants of a GPO, a power point. Cable's, burnt-out cables. So then we go and ask the homeowner or the occupant, what was plugged into that area there? What was sitting there? What's different? Fires don't usually start. It's not a ten-minute time period. It's usually something's precipitated the fire, something that's changed over the last 24 to 72 hours. So we try and get that information from the homeowner. We're not there to determine or apportion blame. We're there to discover how the fire started. So if there's a prevention message that we can put out, we'll able to do that.
[Silvana] I imagine that a lot of the time evidence is burnt in these situations. Do you find that that hampers your efforts to determine a cause?
[Mark] To a degree, but not really. We work on a level of certainty called a balance of probability. So if we can get ourselves over a 51% level of certainty, then we can call that fire what it is.
[Silvana] What has been the hardest day for you as a fire investigator, and why has that day been so hard?
[Mark] Okay, it was March 2011. There was a report of a fire at a caravan park down in Mandurah. When I got there, it was a cast of thousands because there was reports of a gas cylinder explosion. Long story short, three people lost their lives. A young girl who was 13. A young boy who was 16. And their father. At the time, my children were the same age, and it was really difficult. It was really, really difficult. I remember walking in the door, and just bursting into tears.
[Silvana] And how do you deal with those tough days?
[Mark] Hmm. Feel what you feel. Don't bank it up. Don't hide it. If you've got to cry, cry. You know, you've got to release it. You can't hang on, and push it down and be the tough old Aussies that we used to be. We have to allow our emotions to flow, otherwise they get choked up. And you know what happens when you put a stopper on a kettle?
[Silvana] I guess at the same time you've got a job to do as well. So was that really difficult? Obviously, you know, dealing with the emotions because it is a very difficult situation, but then needing to get on with the job.
[Mark] No it wasn't. It wasn't difficult to compartment it at the time. But once all the adrenaline had gone, then certainly it was. I felt what I felt. Yeah.
[Silvana] You work closely with WA Police. Can you firstly differentiate between your role as a fire investigator and the role of the Arson Squad at an incident?
[Mark] Sure. Well, the Arson Squad don't usually get called out to a fire unless there's some sort of suspicious circumstances to it. So they're always attending, looking at a crime that has been committed. Whereas we start because the fire is undetermined by the Incident Controller. From there, like I said, our level of certainty just has to be a 51%. They have to have beyond a reasonable doubt if they're to, you know, prefer charges and put somebody before the courts.
[Silvana] And so do you determine, quite quickly that it is suspicious? Is that sort of easy to identify? Are there kind of common things that you would suspect in a, you know, deliberately lit fire?
[Mark] Well, without giving away trades of the, you know, secrets of the trade, there are certain things and they're not like every fire are the same. There's just certain circumstances that don't add up. I refer to it as your spidey senses. You know, in the old Spider-Man sense of things, when you - got a gut feeling that something's not right. It shouldn't be as it is. Fire developments are a big one. So in today's day and age, with the type of, furnishings that we have in our homes, types of carpet, everything's petrochemical based.
So we anticipate that a normally furnished room, the fire will maintain that area for about 8 to 10 minutes, which is also about the same time that a fire crew will arrive. If the fire has moved beyond that room and has involved the whole home, then that is not normal fire development, and that is a trigger to just get on the phone to the Arson Squad and let them know that we've got something that might be a bit strange here.
[Silvana] Have you had instances where you call in the Arson Squad and maybe it hasn't been suspicious in the end?
[Mark] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So I got a phone call from crews south of the river. They said they couldn't explain how this fire started. They found a jerry can, a fuel container in the driveway, and no one was home. So that's enough for a fire crew to call it suspicious. So on those grounds, I went out. Managed to track down the homeowner through the Arson Squad. [Coughs] Excuse me. And it was as simple as that his brother had come and taken the jet ski and forgot to take the jerry can.
[Silvana] Okay. And so, yeah, obviously, that's very easy to just consider it suspicious.
[Mark] Absolutely. When you see fire and petrol, you think, hmm.
[Silvana] Why is it so important to secure a scene.
[Mark] Well, scene continuity is really important. A: if it does go down that path of a deliberate fire, a defence lawyer, a good defence lawyer, will want to know that nobody else has contaminated that scene. So, in the advent of a deliberate fire, the police will post scene guards and put a protected forensic area in place, which means nobody can cross this barrier.
[Silvana] I guess as well. So do you also interview witnesses and homeowners and people who are living in homes that have burnt down? Do you interview them as well for your role, or is that specific to police?
[Mark] No. So the police do interview. We call it a different word. We canvass people, so we're just asking them questions. If, down the line, it ends up being a deliberate fire and I have interviewed somebody without mirandizing them, which is the, you know, anything you do say will be taken down and may be used - I don't have the legislative power to do that. So I can't use my statement that I take from anybody in a court of law. So we just canvass, and then we get some - if we get some strange answers, then we'll pass them on to the police.
[Silvana] I want to get a feel for some of the incidents that you've attended over the years. What are the hardest type of incidents that you attend as a fire investigator?
[Mark] Oh, definitely fatalities. Definitely. There - you just don't get used to it. You know, you've got a job to do, role to do, and we have to do it. But they're always difficult.
[Silvana] What surprises you the most about house fires?
[Mark] It would have to be the fact that a lot of homeowners are oblivious to the fact of fire safety. I mean, we've been we've been knocking on doors for years now in regards to fire safety. Way before I joined this organisation in 1990. And it’s gathered pace. 2012, legislation was introduced for smoke detectors where they became mandatory, because, you know, it's an old catchphrase, but smoke detectors do save lives. They wake people up and they'll get you out.
[Silvana] What are some of the most unusual causes that you've come across? I know sometimes spontaneous combustion, as the name suggests.
[Mark] Mmm.
[Silvana] Strange things happen.
[Mark] Absolutely. McDonald's. In, I think, I can't remember the year, but McDonald's in Morley caught fire from a mop.
[Silvana] And so how did that eventuate?
[Mark] Well the mop had been used to pick up some oil and then just got placed outside in their yard area. It was really warm. Really, really warm. And the video footage we have of this mop just starting to smoke up, and it caught fire. It was laying over some plastic crates. They melted. It was quite a large blaze before anybody noticed it. And the manager of the store at the time came out with a fire extinguisher. She had a go: no good. But she opened up the door and the fire travelled in.
[Silvana] And so what steps would you take? Let's take that example. What steps would you take to then lead you to the mop?
[Mark] Well, again, it's areas of most damage. So there was, what they call an oil pig, next door to it. So where they poured their old oil, and it was a stainless steel container, quite large. Twice the size of this table. And it displayed areas of corrosion, or we call oxidation, because fire is basically rapid rusting. So we were able to identify the fact that that end, or your end of the oil pig, was basically untouched. You know, it had a bit of paint missing, but this end here, was really corroded. So this was a start point for us. We were able to identify that this has been involved in fire longer than that end had. So we sort of started around here and we got it to within a good metre and a half. And then we got the CCTV footage.
[Silvana] Do you find that, witness - information from witnesses is quite helpful in your job?
[Mark] Sometimes.
[Silvana] Can it go the opposite way?
[Mark] Absolutely. Yeah. People can throw red herrings. Like I say, I think, a majority of the people out there are honest people, but feel they might get into trouble, or their insurance company might question them if they've done something that is a bit dumb.
[Silvana] What is something that surprises people about your job?
[Mark] Oh, is it like CSI? I get that question - is it like CSI? No it's not.
[Silvana] [Laughs] How does it differ to CSI?
[Mark] Well, we don't have a lab. That is all done by - if we need to test anything, it's all done by ChemCentre. And it doesn't get done straight away. You know, there's a backlog of stuff waiting to be tested.
[Silvana] What kinds of things would you send for testing at a scene?
[Mark] Well, we don't really do it. We have the ability to do it, but usually if we're testing, anything, it would be for, an ignitable liquid, an accelerant that's been poured onto a carpet, or onto a floor covering. So, this would invariably involve the police. They would then take samples according to the Evidence Act, and they would take a control sample over a faraway but similar material. And from an area where we've determined that that's potentially an area of origin.
[Silvana] What is what are the most typical causes that you come across in your time?
[Mark] Of late? Lithium-ion batteries.
[Silvana] And so why is that such a concern?
[Mark] People don't have any idea how dangerous they are, and they are extremely dangerous. They're bombs waiting to go off.
[Silvana] What makes them so dangerous?
[Mark] They’re chemicals. It's lithium.
[Silvana] And I guess they're in everyday appliances? Everyday things that we have at home. What makes them catch fire?
[Mark] That's the million-dollar question. If we knew that, we'd be able to stop them from catching fire. This is not a new technology. Lithium has - they've been playing with it since 1912, trying to get it right. All scientists know that lithium sits number three on the periodical table. It only has three electrons, so it will give off and accept those electrons rather easily. Which, in the form, for layman's terms, that's energy. It will give off and accept energy really, really easily. It's the lightest solid, on the periodical table. So scientists recognised that earlier on that perhaps we could work with this, as a rechargeable energy source. They could never get the chemistry quite right, and it wasn't until 1991, that Sony patented their Handycam. But it's the same technology that is in use today. It hasn't changed.
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[Silvana] This is Mics & Sirens. I'm here with Fire Investigator Mark Hayes talking about uncovering the cause of fires. So are there certain things that you have found over your time dealing with lithium battery fires that result in the fires. For example, you know, maybe they're faulty or overcharged or, you know?
[Mark] There are lots and lots of reasons, but I'd say the predominant reason is the care of the battery. So it is a chemical equation, inside a little container. And they don't like to be disturbed too much. But you get kids with their lithium-ion scooters, doing tricks and jumping kerbs and railing and stuff that - the batteries just don't appreciate it. Every lithium-ion battery operated piece of equipment has a battery management system and a little piece of electronics that will tell you if, like, I can refer to your phone. Everybody's seeing their phone going, "I'm too hot, I'm not working." So that's the battery management system in operation. If that - and that's only just a little tiny chip. And if that gets damaged, then there's nothing there to tell the operator that the battery is not happy. Don't use it. Let it cool down. So it goes into thermal runaway. Batteries don't like - lithium-ion batteries don't like being discharged to zero. They transport them with probably 5 to 10% energise in them, because that's the safest method of transport.
When you try and charge a lithium-ion battery that's been completely discharged, the amount of energy that it takes to pump it up to 5% is magnificent. And if you were to feel your battery, it gets really hot at that 0 to 5% point, Using - and we're all guilty of this, sitting on the couch watching telly, charging the phone, playing on the phone. It gets really hot. In essence, what you're doing is you're pushing electricity into it, and you're taking electricity out of it, at the same time. It's not good for the battery. Using chargers that weren't meant for that item. So you can buy lots of them on eBay. A lot cheaper than the original equipment, but they're not good because they don't talk to the battery, and the battery doesn't talk back to the equipment.
[Silvana] Okay. So you determine the cause or sometimes the cause remains undetermined. What happens next? So do you speak to the property owner? Do you hand over to the property owner.
[Mark] If we can? Yeah, we prefer to hand it back to the property owner or the property owner's representative. Nine times out of ten, they're insured, and we will be there with the property owner during our investigation. They want to get their property, their goods out, their valuables, if they can be saved. We are always helping them. You know, looking for the wedding certificates, the wedding photos, jewellery that's been stashed, money.
So we'll be there with the homeowner and we will say, look, "get in touch with your insurance company now," because then they'll come and secure the property. It becomes a safety hazard for the public. We have on occasion had to enlist the help of the LGA, the local government, in order to come and put some fencing up around a property, because for whatever reason, the occupant or the homeowner is not present.
[Silvana] So are there hazards? Is that why you put the fencing up?
[Mark] Absolutely.
[Silvana] And so do you write a report based on your findings?
[Mark] Yes, yes.
[Silvana] And what does that look like? So is that for the insurance company?
[Mark] No, no. It's internal. Yeah. They do get requested via the freedom of information process, by insurance companies. But basically, it's an internal report to say we came, we saw, this is what we found.
[Silvana] So do you have direct contact with people who lose their homes? Obviously, you've just mentioned that you do speak with them along the way, but what does your contact with those people look like?
[Mark] Oh, it's always really harsh, because when I go to work, I'm meeting people possibly on the worst day of their lives. And they've just lost everything that they own. So there's a certain amount of empathy that we have to have in order to do this job. And we really want - I feel for them. You know, I don't really have a bad day, because I know, and I have met dozens of people that are always having a worse day than I could ever have. So I have a very positive outlook on life for that reason alone. But we do our best to try and resettle them. Department of Communities helps a lot. In the event that it's 2 o'clock in the morning and they don't have anywhere else to go, the Department of Communities have an emergency hotline where we can get them some emergency accommodation, change of clothes, you know, some food.
[Silvana] So is it only house fires that you attend or structure fires? Do you go to bushfires as well?
[Mark] Absolutely.
[Silvana] And what type of work would you do at bushfires?
[Mark] They're a little bit more intense. It's probably way more disgusting than walking around a burnt-out house. It's hot, because bushfires don't occur in winter. So the temperature's hot, there's flies. It's burnt out, we've got animal corpses that we're dealing with. Hundreds and hundreds of people. We've got an Incident Management Team who are focused on controlling this fire and limiting the amount of damage that it does to the environment and protecting infrastructure. And for us to try and get hold of somebody from that IMT to get some direction, as to who was the first arriving crews, where can we find them? That's a bit difficult sometimes.
[Silvana] And in those large-scale incidents, is it really hard to narrow down the ignition point?
[Mark] No. No, it's much the same as a structure fire. By the time any crew arrived, the area where the fire has started, is - it's no longer on fire. So we will ask the crews, where was the fire when you saw it? And we'll use things like wind direction and speed to be able to walk it backwards.
[Silvana] And so say for example, you're in a, you know, massive bushland, and it was someone who discarded a cigarette. How do you find that? Is that like a needle in a haystack?
[Mark] We wouldn't find the cigarette, per se. And, it's really difficult for a cigarette - a discarded cigarette butt to catch fire. It's got to be a perfect environment. It has to be above 26°C, and below 22% relative humidity. Outside of those parameters, having a cigarette light a fire is really difficult. But we can still find that area of origin. We can get it within a five-metre radius. And as far as fire investigation goes, that's called an area of origin.
[Silvana] So say, for example, with a fire that - where you're having to sort of dismantle the building, what do you do in that regard? Do you bring in external agencies or contractors? Can you talk me through that?
[Mark] Okay. Well, the cabinet-making shop in Balcatta. That was a massive fire, and the roof collapsed. It was predominantly a steel building, and the roof collapsed. And we know that the fire started inside that area where the roof collapsed. And so the idea was to get contractors in to come and lift the roof off for us. But that couldn't occur because the tilt-up panels were 30 years old, and they had disintegrated. So for safety's sake, they had to be pushed in first. And then, of course, that just destroyed any potential area of origin.
[Silvana] Did you end up finding an area of origin for that?
[Mark] Not really. No. No, we've got an idea of maybe a 20 square metre area. And that's through CCTV footage of where the first smoke was seen and the amount of damage that we've got in that area, but it was terribly collapsed.
[Silvana] So you started in fire investigations about eight years ago?
[Mark] Full time? Yes, I did my first stint back in 2011.
[Silvana] And so how has technology changed in that time?
[Mark] Well, we've been able to move away - for us - we've been able to move away from using paper, which is a godsend. We now have an operating system on our phones and in tablet form, which generate our - what we call our field notes, our contemporaneous notes, and we build a report from that. Again, I hark back to lithium-ion batteries. This whole portable energy storage system has generated - it's going to keep fireys busy for the next 30 years, put it that way. When I first started in 2016, a full-time investigator, we were still seeing, a kitchen fires as a result of oil. People now have airfryers, so those sorts of fires have dissipated. Wintertime, we would see clothing too close to a heater. Well, heaters now have thermostats and tilt switches on them, so if they fall over, they turn off. If they get too hot, they turn off. Electric blankets used to have old, standard copper cables. Now they have fibre optics. Once the fibre optic overheats and breaks, the circuit's broken and the heat no longer generates to a point of fire.
[Silvana] Why is fire investigation so important? What kind of things do you use your findings for?
[Mark] Well, we use our statistics. We're able to use statistics to let the Commissioner know where our areas of concern are. Of course, everybody's aware that lithium-ion batteries are increasing, and they're no longer an emerging risk. They're just an increasing risk. They've emerged. They've shown up.
[Silvana] So does it help with things like, you know, educating the community members of what to do and to keep fire safe and maybe taking faulty products off shelves?
[Mark] Absolutely. Absolutely. We have - so AFAC, is the Australian Fire Authorities Council. So every state in Australia has a fire investigation unit, different names, but we all do the same thing. And we then meet, a couple of times a year. Once in person and then a couple of times a year over Teams meetings. And we discuss what we're finding. So you may recall a few years back, there was a Samsung washing machine that was catching fire. Killed a few people over in the eastern states, destroyed about 18 homes nationwide. If it hadn't been for that communication between all the heads of fire investigation departments, we wouldn't have been able to pick up that we had a problem with those machines.
So a few years after that product recall, there was a house in Perth that caught fire. The Incident Controller put it down to the Samsung washing machine. Samsung was so concerned, they sent a technical rep from South Korea over to try and work out why it had started.
[Silvana] Okay. Very interesting. So what, for you, is the best part about your job?
[Mark] Having a win. And when I say having a win, that's being able to determine the cause. Walking away and stating categorically that's how that fire started. That's where it started, that's how it started.
[Silvana] And are you always able to make that statement?
[Mark] No. No, no. No and I reckon, we'd be on par for around 40%, 50% of the time.
[Silvana] And what are the things that hold you back?
[Mark] The level of destruction to a building. We're not going to compromise our safety, if a building's unsafe, for a cause of determination. And that happens often. More often than not. Insofar as not being able to get to where we need to be, that we can always get to an area of origin or a general area of origin. So, even for a house that's been completely destroyed, regional properties. By the time volunteers get there, it's 15 minutes has passed, the house is fully involved, but we'll still be able to determine where the fire has come from. So we'll say it's the kitchen. What was in the kitchen? So then on your balance of probabilities, if the only thing that was energised in the kitchen was the fridge and it was an old fridge, then we can say that potentially the fridge caught fire.
[Silvana] And so what would you say to those people who assume that your role, as a fire investigator, is like what you see in the movies?
[Mark] No. No, no. I'm no Robert De Niro. [Laughs]
[Silvana] Thank you Mark.
[Mark] No worries. Thanks very much.
[Male Narrator] Are you looking for fast, accurate and official information that helps you to make informed decisions to stay safe during an emergency? The Department of Fire and Emergency Services Emergency WA app lets you set up watch zones for places important to you. So if an emergency happens in your watch zone, you'll receive alerts and warnings. The best part? It's sent direct to your mobile device. Download DFES' Emergency WA app from the App Store or Google Play today.
[Silvana] Thanks for listening to Mics and Sirens. I'm your host, Silvana Pulitano. Join me next time where I sit down with DFES' Deputy Commissioner to talk about recovering and rebuilding communities after an emergency. For more information on this episode, visit the show notes.