Turbo Pudding

Twelve NeighborsThe real story

How real fire investigators read a burned barn

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

The burned barn on the jury view: Ray the bailiff, a tall man in a khaki uniform shirt with epaulets, two pockets and a gold shield badge, brown trousers and a belt, stands in the middle with his hands clasped and his eyes closed in a smile; around him are black beams and a torn tin roof open to a gray sky, yellow caution tape strung across a heap of charred boards, an old rusty farm cart, a yellow school bus parked on the left, a half-burned red barn door hanging open on the right and a long low building on the flat fields beyond

Twelve Neighbors is an arson trial in the town of Harrow, and you are Juror Seven. The case is about Russ Hoffman’s old barn, and in chapter 3 the jury finally hears how it burned. The State calls a fire investigator, Mr. Sorensen, who has “a slideshow and a tie with tiny flames on it.” It’s Thursday, so here is the real story behind his job.

The picture at the top is Tuesday’s jury view, “a field trip, with a court reporter.” A yellow school bus takes the jury out to the barn, and Ray the bailiff sets the rules: “Look all you want, folks. No touching, no talking, no souvenirs.”

Two sentences from the stand

Sorensen gets straight to it. “Area of origin, the hayloft. Northeast corner. The fire burned down from there, not up.” Then: “The lab found an ignitable liquid in the debris. Similar to gasoline.” Brittany Shaw, the prosecutor, likes that last part so much she says it again: “Similar to gasoline. Thank you, Mr. Sorensen. Your witness.”

Those two sentences are the two halves of the real job. Investigators call it origin and cause: where a fire began, and what started it.

The Lark County courtroom: Brittany Shaw, the prosecutor, with long sleek black hair and a pleased little smile, stands on the right in a navy blazer and trousers over a white shirt, one hand on her hip and the other holding a small black clicker with a red button; behind her are the judge’s bench with a dark red chair, a gavel and a nameplate reading JUDGE WHITLOCK, a LARK COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT sign with a gold star below it, a round seal with the scales of justice, an EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW sign, an American flag on a pole on the left and a tall arched window with orange and yellow autumn trees on the right
Searched “courtroom visual novel.” The prosecution looks pleased.

Safety first, then a sketch

The National Institute of Justice, the research agency of the US Department of Justice, publishes A Guide for Investigating Fire and Arson. Its first rule for the scene is short: “Safety overrides all other concerns.” After that comes patience: photographs taken systematically, logs, sketches and diagrams. The guide calls working out origin and cause “a complex and difficult undertaking” that needs training and the scientific method.

The jurors of Harrow get the short version. Brenda narrates the whole county from the seat behind the driver, like a tour guide, until the bus pulls up: “Oh. That’s the barn.” Black beams. “A tin roof folded like a napkin.” And the door, still standing.

The burned barn: Brenda Kowalski, juror 2, an older woman with a tall cream beehive held by a hairpin, gold hoop earrings and a sad, tired face, stands on the left in a hot pink cardigan over a black top, with a round pink JUROR 2 badge and her hands clasped in front of her; behind her a yellow school bus is parked by a charred fence, black beams and a broken tin roof hang overhead, yellow caution tape runs across a heap of burned boards next to an old rusty farm cart, and the HARROW water tower and a long low building stand on the flat fields in the distance
Search: “visual novel field trip.” First stop, one burned barn.

Reading the walls

One pattern investigators look for is the V. A glossary of fire terms hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, says V patterns are made by flames, hot fire gases or smoke within the fire plume, and often show up as lines of demarcation, the edges between what burned hard and what was spared.

Patterns need care, though. A 1997 report for the National Institute of Justice described full-scale fire tests in furnished bedrooms at NIST and concluded that some traditionally used indicators have little or no technically defensible basis.

Into the can

The jurors can’t take so much as a splinter, and real investigators are just as fussy. The NIJ guide says to collect from the area of origin into clean, unused containers: metal cans, glass jars or special nylon or polyester bags, each vapor-tight, sealed right away and labeled. Fuel-powered tools stay away from the samples, so a chainsaw can’t add a liquid that wasn’t there. Investigators also take comparison samples of the same material, to show the lab what it looks like with nothing on it.

Similar to gasoline?

Then Walt Pruitt, for the defense, opens with four words: “Similar to what, son?” Sorensen: “…A heavy petroleum distillate. Kerosene. Lamp oil, possibly.” Walt: “Lamp oil. The kind you’d find in, say, a lamp.”

In a real lab, those are two different answers. Samples go through gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, and the results are sorted into classes under a standard called ASTM E1618. NIST hosts a draft of its update. Gasoline is a class of its own: fresh gasoline typically has molecules of 4 to 12 carbon atoms. Heavy petroleum distillates run from about 9 to more than 20, and the examples include kerosene, diesel fuel, charcoal starters and lamp oils. The standard adds a warning: labels describe what a product does, not what it’s made of, so two bottles with the same label can land in different classes.

The Lark County courtroom: Walt Pruitt, the defense lawyer, an old man with white hair combed straight back, white eyebrows and a sly half smile, stands in the middle holding a pair of dark red braces, in a brown jacket over a white shirt and a dark red tie, with a thin gold chain across his front; behind him are the judge’s bench with a dark red chair, a gavel and a JUDGE WHITLOCK nameplate, an EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW sign, an American flag on a pole, a round wall clock, two hanging lamps and arched windows with orange autumn trees on both sides
Typed “lawyer game cross examination.” Walt has a question.

Noses on the job

ATF, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, trains its Certified Fire Investigators for two years, with more than 300 hours of training, 100 fire scenes and 80 origin and cause reports, and they recertify every year. ATF also trains accelerant detection dogs on a food reward: six weeks for the dog, then six more with its handler.

Harrow has its own nose. Inside the barn, Earl Becker, Juror Three, stands under where the loft used to be and breathes in, slow, “like a man at a pie table.” “Smells like my granddaddy’s barn.” What else he says, we’ll leave to the game.

The burned barn, up close: Earl Becker, juror 3, an old man in a brown felt hat with white hair at the sides and bushy white eyebrows, stands with his eyes closed as he breathes in, in a brown plaid shirt and blue overalls with a round brown JUROR 3 badge; behind him are black beams, a torn tin roof and a gray sky, the HARROW water tower and a small house on the flat fields on the left, yellow caution tape across the charred boards below and the broken red barn door on the right
Search history: “farm mystery game,” then “what does Earl smell.”

Back in Harrow

Walt has one more go: “Did you find a gas can up there, son? A funnel? One single match?” Sorensen: “We found a great deal of ash, sir.” Walt: “I’ll take that as a no.” So what was up in that loft? A lamp, a gas can or just hay. What to think is up to you.

Chapters 1–3 of Twelve Neighbors, the jury view and the testimony included, are free to play in your browser at twelveneighbors.com. The full game is $9.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Twelve Neighbors page.

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