Fuel & air explosion investigations - Part 1
The investigation of a dispersed explosion, such as a gas or dust explosion, has unique challenges and issues that the forensic investigator must address.
Insurance industry professionals rightfully have certain requirements they expect their appointed forensic investigator or engineer to meet. These include excellent communication, skilled on-site investigations, timeliness of response and reporting, and clear conclusions and advice regarding the cause of an incident, liability issues, and recovery or repudiation prospects.
The investigation of a dispersed explosion, such as a gas or dust explosion, has unique challenges and issues that the forensic investigator must address, and therefore specific questions that the insurance industry professional will want answered. Often, the reality of a fuel/air explosion investigation will differ from how an ideal investigation progresses.
The nature of the fuel/air explosion, the size of the scene, the resulting damage, access to physical evidence and witnesses, and cooperation from federal, state and local authorities and other interested parties will all dictate how the investigation proceeds.
Following are three distinct investigative timelines. As with any forensic investigation, each explosion scene is processed on its merits. Although the underpinning methodology and practices will be the same, no two cases will pan out the same way.
Ideal Investigation
As detailed here, the investigation of a fuel/air explosion is far more likely to proceed in a more protracted way, typically taking weeks or months to finalize.
Realistic Investigation
- Structural or safety issues
- Authorities have priority and do not want others in their scene
- How much information other parties are willing or able to share
- Access to critical physical evidence and witnesses
In rare instances, the lack of access and information sharing can be extreme resulting in a scenario as shown in the timeline below.
Worst Case Scenario
Thankfully, timelines such as this are very rare. From a private sector perspective, the issue of information sharing and access to evidence is often a factor. Depending on who the client is, it may be the case that authorities don’t divulge until a considerable way down the track.
In part 2 of this series, we will look at some of the challenges with fuel and air explosion investigations.
The manager of Jensen Hughes’s Warrington, U.K. office, Gareth Williams is a senior investigator with experience in fire and explosion investigations in many different settings. Throughout his career, he has investigated over 500 fires in the U.K., Europe, Australia, the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Contact him at gareth.williams@jensenhughes.com.
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