classroom and Jack's up late at night studying standard electrical plans for your basic two-bedroom two-bath model home.
They've got the class examining burned-out cords — 'Was the cord burned by the fire or was it the source of the fire? You need to know' — and electrical outlets and electric blankets and fuse boxes. The class learns how to determine if someone tampered with a circuit breaker in order to give the appearance of an accidental electrical fire. They learn how people can accidentally set fire to their houses by overloading extension cords, or leaving them where the dog can chew on them, or by splicing wires, or by generally trying to get more electric power than their system was designed to handle.
Electricity is heat, Jack learns, subject to all the physical laws and consequences thereof. It is, in effect, an incipient smoldering phase awaiting the kiss that will send it to ignition.
Chemical — propane, natural gas, methane explosions. Then you're looking for code violations, sloppy installation, mechanical breakdowns. Once again Jack feels as if he's learning a new trade, because they're bringing heating contractors in and they break down oil heaters and pumps, propane tanks and insertion systems, nozzles, ignition systems. They learn what they're supposed to look like and what they look like when things go wrong.
And another chemical cause — smoking in bed. One of the most common causes of household fires and a beaut. A king-size polyurethane mattress has an HRR of 2,630 (over three times that of a big dry Christmas tree), so if you light one of those up it's going to transfer the heat to about everything else in the room, including the inhabitants.
So those are the three basic causes of accidental fires.
'To determine the precise cause of origin,' Captain Sparky tells them, 'you have to identify the point of origin.'
Point of origin is the whole game. You find the origin, you're almost always going to determine the cause. You're going to find the frayed wire, the flawed heater, the mattress that looks like somebody napalmed it.
Cause and origin is the thing.
Which is why they make it the final exam.
What they do is they burn a house.
The faculty goes out to a condemned two-bedroom ranch house on the edge of town and sets it on fire. Captain Sparky takes the class out there and says, 'Gentlemen, here's the final exam. Do an inspection, do an investigation, and determine the cause and origin.'
Get it right, you pass.
Get it wrong, sayonara.
Jack's cool with this. This is the way it should be. Get it right or get your feet in gear. Jack's ready.
Then Sparky says, 'Gentlemen, you are all in the same boat. Work together. Turn in a collective report as to cause and origin. The correct C amp;O, the entire class passes the course. Incorrect C amp;O, you all fail,'
But no, you know, pressure.
'You have until 0700 tomorrow, gentlemen. Good luck.'
Sparky tosses down a notebook giving the names and addresses of the neighbors, who get paid fifty bucks each for memorizing a set of facts, in case they're asked by the students. Same with a pair of owners. Sparky tosses this down and walks off.
Leaving the students standing there looking at this burned-out shell and thinking, Oh fuck, when Jack says, 'Let's get to work.'
He organizes the class. Decides someone better do that in a hurry before fifteen men go through like a herd of elephants and trample the evidence. So Jack's like, 'First thing we do is a walk around the exterior and everyone take notes. Ferri, start taking pictures. Garcia, how about doing a diagram? Krantz and Stewart, canvass the neighbors. Myers, interview the owners and get it on tape…'
Some of the guys stand there looking at Jack like, Who made you God?
Jack says, 'Hey, guys, I ain't flunking this course.'
So let's get after it.
Four in the morning, they're back in the dorm talking it over.
Fuse box fire is what they come up with.
Overloaded circuit breaker.
They have heavy char around the fuse box and the worst heat damage in the area directly above the box. A big V-pattern with its base as wide as the fuse box.
A no-brainer as far as that goes.
The guys that did the dig-out report no pour patterns on the concrete slab. No spalling, no signs of accelerant.
Owners were home at the time of the fire.
Neighbors report nothing unusual.
Burn patterns consistent with source.
Materials burned and not burned consistent with HRRs.
They're ready to go in: a Class C Fire — Accidental Fire of Electrical Origin.
'I don't think so,' Jack says.
To groans from fourteen exhausted men.
'The fuck you mean you don't think so?' Ferri asks. He's like, annoyed.
'I mean I don't think so,' Jack says. 'I think this is an incendiary fire.'
'Fuckin' Wade,' seems to be the general opinion. 'Don't be an asshole… Wade, don't be such a pain…' A firestorm, as it were, of protest. Which Ferri leads: 'Look, we've been working this for fifteen-plus hours. We're beat. Don't come in here with your cop bullshit and try to make an overloaded fuse box into a federal case.'
'Someone tampered with the circuit breaker,' Jack says. 'The plastic sheathing on the calibration screw is missing.'
'Far as I'm concerned, Wade,' Ferri says, 'the only sheathing that was missing was what your father forgot when he knocked up your mother.'
Jack says, 'Calibration screws always have plastic sheathing on them. Where is it?'
'It melted off.'
'It wouldn't melt off,' Jack says. 'It would melt on. There's no sign of that. Someone recalibrated the circuit breaker. To do that they had to break the sheath off the calibration screw. I'd look at the owners.'
'We looked at the owners,' Krantz said. 'They looked all right to us.'
'Did you call the mortgage company?' Jack asks.
'No,' Krantz says.
'Why not?'
'We were looking at a fuse box fire…'
'Are the owners employed?'
'Yeah.'
'Did you check with the employers?'
'No…'
'Shit,' Jack says. Like he's going to bust Krantz one.
'I'm sorry,' Krantz says.
'Don't be sorry,' Jack says. 'Do your fucking job.'
'Chill out,' Ferri says.
'You chill out,' Jack says. 'These assholes had a job to do and-'
'Look, hotshot,' Ferri says. 'Just because you want to show off-'
'Explain the missing sheathing, Ferri,' Jack says. 'Anybody?'
No takers.
'Let's vote,' Ferri says.
Knowing it's 14 to 1.
'Vote my ass,' Jack says.
'What are you, the dictator here?'
'I'm right.'
Your basic awkward silence. Finally, one of the guys — the guy Jack had pulled from the concrete tower —
