Prosecutors ( @NDAAJustice) will attack this report as “not relevant” due to this “scientific community” not being law enforcement employed fire investigators. Most of arson field investigators only need a high school diploma as a pre-requisite.

“This investigative technique, while still adequate for fires that have not reached flashover, must be modified for post-flashover or “fully involved” fires. Studies have shown that fires burning for even a few minutes beyond flashover produce burn patterns capable of causing erroneous conclusions in determining the origin of a fire in excess of 75%.9
In one study, only 13 of 53 investigators were able to correctly identify the quadrant of origin in a fire that burned for three minutes beyond flashover.10 These results are cause for concern.”

One of their recommendations:

“These tests of reliability will provide feedback on decision
points that cause divergent findings among investigators.”

Full American Association For The Advancement of Science arson review.