Reference
Expert Reports - Making Reports Much Gooder Better
By Mark Hughes, P. Eng.
© 2001 Sintra Engineering Inc.
In your career as a fire investigator, you are often asked to prepare reports detailing your findings. In the public sector, sometimes this is limited to the filling in the blanks fire report for the fire commissioner's office possibly with a short narrative discussing the results of the investigation. On the private side, this can take the form of a detailed expert report that outlines (hopefully) in clear prose, the results of your investigation. What are the implications of these reports and how they are worded?
Most fire investigators, except those with aspirations to be novelists, are generally not the best at writing. Fire investigators, particularly good ones, are by definition good at investigating fires. Fire investigation is a very practical skill that often does not require much skill with the English language (digging a fire scene generally requires more skill using the business end of a shovel). As a consequence, there are a number of pitfalls that most fire investigators fall into when preparing written reports detailing the results of their investigations. While I am not a lawyer, I am often retained to review the reports of others, to try to find weaknesses in the report prepared for the other side (there is almost always another side).
First, the basics: expert reports can have a very long life. What this means is that your report may be involved in litigation. Litigation, particularly contentious litigation, can last many years. Your report may be around a long time. Try to consider this when you are preparing your report. This means no matter how rushed you are to prepare the report, always check your report for spelling and grammar. Most computer programs do a rudimentary job with both but the best method is to get someone else to read the report from start to finish before you issue it. You would be surprised how many errors will get caught.
NFPA 921 describes a methodology for approaching a fire investigation and while this may be the best practical way to examine a fire scene as a method for describing the cause of a fire, it tends to make for crappy reports. The best way to write a fire investigation report is to describe the circumstances, as you understand them prior to the fire, comment on your observations from the fire scene and then provide your interpretation of the meaning of those observations. Your report does not need to describe all the detail required to complete your opinion, usually all it requires is the bottom line. Some people can convey their opinion in a single page of text whereas others may take significantly longer to get to the point. Regardless of the length of the report, the main objective is to convey your opinion regarding the fire.
The best expert reports are the best organized. There are a variety of ways to organize an expert report, but all that is required is that information of a similar nature be grouped together. When you are giving your conclusions, right after stating that the fire was electrical in origin, it is really distracting to have a comment that the building was a two storey duplex with wood siding. The former is a conclusion, the latter an observation. Keep them separate.
Photographs are probably the single most valuable way to convey some of the complex concepts surrounding how a fire developed. A photograph can be a valuable tool in preparing a fire investigation report as it can also provide context for the environment in which the fire developed. Often fire investigators will only take photographs of the areas of interest, whereas wider shots are more often useful in allowing the person reading the report to understand the circumstances.
As a fire investigator you were not there when the fire occurred. This means you're your report is an opinion report. In a legal trial, a fire investigator's report, after the fire investigator qualifies as an expert, forms the basis of his opinion. As I described in the last article regarding appearing as a expert witness, be very careful in the use of the words possible and probable. Remember you should be able to replace possible with the word unlikely and probable with the word likely and still have the same meaning. If you don't your report is probably not conveying your concepts correctly.
If the litigation goes for an extended period of time, you may be asked to write a second report. The one problem that can occur is for fire investigators that have not reviewed their notes for a while to write a second report that may contradict some points brought forward in their first report. Consequently, be careful to not contradict yourself. It is acceptable to change your mind based upon new and relevant information, but don't change your mind just because.
Sometimes, in this business, you will be asked to rebut (respond to) someone else's report. Alternatively your report may be rebutted by a competitor or colleague and you need to respond to the issues raised with your report. Never take any comments personally (although some may sting) and never comment personally on the other person's report (even if he/she deserves it). Statements like "Joe is wrong because he is an idiot" (don't laugh too hard, I've seen it!) tend to go over like a lead balloon. This just makes you look bad in front of your client/employer and makes you look like a fool. Rebutting a report or responding to a rebuttal report is often the most complex type of report to prepare, it will often take a lot of thought to address all the issues raised.
If you keep in mind a number of these rules of thumb, it should help you
in preparing concise well written reports that you will not regret years
later when you have to testify regarding their content.
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