Research on Burn Pattern Characteristics of Two Typical Flooring Materials Loaded by Gasoline

Abstract

Gasoline, as one of the flammable liquids, is used commonly in arson. Due to its typical fluidity and permeability, particular burn patterns can be formed in fire scene. In order to provide references for fire investigators to collect trace evidences and identify fire cause accurately, the burn patterns on different flooring materials are investigated in this paper. Two new kinds of flooring materials (Rubber pad and EVA mosaic floor) were selected in the experiments to study the burn pattern characteristics by simulating the fire scene. By comparing the difference of the burning pattern with and without gasoline, rules of pattern characteristics on different material surface have been summarized. Meanwhile, fire extinguishing style was considered in this work. The results show that the burn pattern characteristics become remarkably different when the flooring materials loaded by gasoline. In addition, fire extinguishing style has a great impact on the burn patterns, such as the carbonized degree, the residual shape and the fire traces. It is believed that the results in this paper would provide important guidance for investigation on arson which applied gasoline as the combustion improver.