Rod Ammon: Welcome to the CFITrainer.Net podcast. This month we'll hear some stories from the field from Dr. Elayne Pope. She's a forensic, anthropologist, and fire fatalities instructor for the IAAI. She's here to share cases in which fire effects, patterns, and evidence associated with human bodies made a critical difference in origin and cause determination. We're also talking a bit about her career, including the case that moved her to specialize in fire fatalities and what she's researching now. Before we begin, this episode carries a content warning because we are discussing human fire fatality cases that include the death of a child. If you're more comfortable reading the transcript, that's available for you on this episode's page at CFITrainer.net/podcast. Dr. Elayne Pope is a forensic anthropologist and the director of Fatal Fire Research and Education. She assists crime scene investigators and fire investigators in understanding the bodies of fire victims. Dr. Pope's research focuses on how the human body burns in different fire environments and what types of physical evidence remain on, in, and around the victim's body at a fatal fire scene for crime scene and fire investigators. Dr. Pope delivers lectures and training and consults as a forensic expert and examines fatal fire casework for fire investigators, law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, attorneys, and courts. She conducts ongoing field research examining the process of how human bodies burn. From 2011 to 2017, she was the autopsy supervisor and forensic anthropologist for six years at the Tidewater office of the chief medical examiner in Norfolk, Virginia. She holds a doctorate from the University of Arkansas. Dr. Pope, with all the work you've done for fire investigation, it surprises me that we've never had you on the podcast. I know that all of us at the IAAI and within the Fire Investigation community are grateful for the time you have dedicated to training and educating fire investigators. I'm glad you're here with us today to share your expertise. Welcome.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Rod Ammon: How did you get into this, this subspecialty of forensic anthropology dealing with how human bodies burn and what evidentiary value they have for investigators?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Well, I started off in college actually as an art major in ceramics, so I did a lot of work with kilns and high firings and actually studied bones in them to see how those would survive. Animal bones and whatnot, not human. But then after that, got really interested in burn bones as well as forensic anthropology. So I study bones of the body to figure out persons, their age, their sex, what they possibly died from if there's traumatic injury. And so anyways, just kind of incorporated that with my love for fire, which goes back to the Girl Scouts learning how to build a fire. Yeah, just kind of got interested. I did an internship at medical examiner's office, got to see all sorts of fatal fire cases from vehicles, structures, of course incendiary, and it just completely piqued my interest. So after that, just started trying to find ways to be able to burn human remains because everything prior to that was done on animals, mostly pigs because they're the most similar in size to the human torso. So in doing that, finally was able to get some human cadaver remains and started testing, started looking at old fire myths, fire investigation myths as it relates to deaths and to see do they hold water, does something else explain the phenomenon that's being seen after the fire. Because if you don't observe the process, you may not fully understand what leads up to or what creates that final effect. So that's where I really got interested in all this, is seeing the process. What does it look like beforehand? How does the fire change it? And what does it look like after? So that way kind of understand a more complete continuum of start to finish of what all the different changes that the human body goes through. Soft tissues, including bone as well.

Rod Ammon: You know, you sound so relaxed, but I know you. And you have such a passion for this topic and it's tough. It's a tough topic for a lot of professionals, even the seasoned investigators who've seen a lot. Where do you get that passion?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: I just love learning. I love testing. I love asking questions, finding out most of the time I'm wrong, which actually are the best results because then I'm able to apply that, improve on it, or figure out, "Okay, I was totally wrong on this one thing when in fact it's something completely different" and now I need to explore that as well. So it's just ideas bouncing around in my head, 3:00 a.m. And then wanting to test it, look at it, or see if I can observe these changes in actual forensic cases, not just experimental studies.

Rod Ammon: How do we further emphasize to investigators that knowing more about fire fatalities can strengthen the origin and cause analysis that leads to a proper determination?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Well, I mean, when you have a fatality involved, that kind of changes the investigation. I mean, obviously origin and cause are very important. But if say for example, if the body is the origin of the fire, that's very important. It could be ignitable liquids. Later on, the body can actually fuel the fire itself from a rendered fat, which basically is grease. And so it's a fuel source in the fire. Or say for example, the body is burned in the room of origin, it's going to look very different than say if the body was the origin itself with ignitable liquids or whatnot. So it does really help and it's a very integral part of the investigation when you have a fatality to not only look at, of course, the origin and cause, but then also how that body responded to that. Was it next to the heat source? Was it in the room that was on fire or away from the heat source? Radiant heat damage? So the body doesn't have to be inside the structure or vehicle to actually get thermal damage.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, there's a lot there. So let's talk about some examples you've seen in your career of cases where fire effects, patterns, and evidence related to human bodies were key to the investigation and made a difference in the investigators work. Tell us why the opportunity to examine the victim, especially in the context of the scene, is so important.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Oh, definitely within the context of the scene. So a lot of times, unfortunately, bodies are removed. They'll get to the scene and they'll immediately take the body out of the scene when in fact, that's the biggest mistake that can be made because the body is a key piece of evidence. And to ignore that or to get rid of that, that's a huge disservice to the whole investigation. As far as like the post-fire, the things that I'm really interested in is showing how to preserve the body, how to not destroy evidence because the fire has already done a bunch of damage, but you can actually create more damage after the fire from handling. One of the things I like to do is train investigators to stop, basically rethink how things are going to be proceeded in terms of how the scene is going to be dealt with, how the remains are going to be dealt with, the investigation and whatnot. But basically my big thing is preservation of evidence, preservation of that burned body, which has now not only been damaged by fire, but is now really fragile and really brittle. So handling it like a normal deceased individual can do significant damage to the body and to the remains. And a lot of times this happens before the body is ever seen at the medical examiner or the coroner's office. So a lot of damage occurs from handling, from moving the body, the body being in a flexible body bag. So all these things are destroying evidence before the medical examiner or forensic pathologist actually examines the body as forensic evidence. And so, like I said, it's really important at the scene to kind of preserve evidence of the victim's body as well as the scene itself. But looking at the body within the scene is really important because you're able to match up fire patterns on the body. The body gets fire patterns, just like walls and furnishings and whatnot. It's no different. It's another piece of evidence with fire patterns in that scene. So if you have the origins at one corner of the room and the body's in the opposite or right next to it, that's going to play into the type of heat damage that the body gets during the initial stage. Now once it goes to flashover, that's totally different. Then the body is pretty much fully involved along with the room. So it's really variable in terms of the burn patterns that are created in relation to the origin of the fire itself.

Rod Ammon: Perhaps you can share some examples to bring some of this to life.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yeah, the big case that I worked, or the most, I guess, the instrumental case I worked was back in 2003, kind of a long time ago. And it involved this total loss of a structure. And basically nobody knew that there was a victim's body there. They were getting ready to do overhaul and just kind of clear it out. And when they were doing overhaul, they found a victim. Even though it was total loss of a house, basically there was still all the evidence survived of the victim's body. She was partially cremated, mostly skeletonized. But that case had a huge impact on me in terms of seeing just how fragile the body was, seeing how fragile the evidence was of the bones and the other materials on the body. And it was a really powerful case. In this case, it did involve a young individual who could not escape the fire. But it was that after that, that's when I started questioning it, coming up with all these questions. She was on a bed and there was a crawlspace underneath, so there's collapse of the floor as well as her in the bed frame. So how does that affect the damage on top of the fire itself? How does burning on top of a bed versus burning on the floor... You just switch one variable and it can totally change it, which is why this is so... why I have such a passion about it, because you're always going to get answers whether it's right or wrong, but you're still going to, it's going to push you to the next level of, "Okay, well this didn't work. Try this. Or maybe this idea fits the hypothesis better."

Rod Ammon: Yeah, that sounds like an exceptionally hard case to deal with. Were you able to find out what happened there?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yes. Unfortunately, she... In this case here, very tragic. The parents actually chained her to the bed at night, and that's why she could not get out of the fire. Now, her siblings, the rest of the parents, they got out. They denied that she was in there. But the evidence of her body survived and it told a story of her death. In all likelihood, it was accidental in terms of how the fire started, but the fact that she was restrained and could not get out, I mean, that's powerful. Finding that piece of evidence. And it wasn't until going through the debris very slowly, very meticulously, then we found the chain and the two padlocks on the bed as well as her ankle and feet. So that was a really, really profound case when I was starting my PhD. And so it was in Arkansas. So all sorts of bizarre cases. I had another one where an individual was... They tried to burn him first in a burn barrel full of diesel fuel. I don't know why they thought that would work. Anyway, so that didn't work. So they burned him in a pit. But they couldn't find the body. So we got called out and they're excavating and they're digging like 6 ft. down, which has disturbed everything. But they still couldn't find the body. So we searched the property. And the guy, the perpetrator completely incinerated the body to basically just small pieces of bones. So we searched the property and one of the things I started looking for was, I was looking for little pieces of charcoal, little pieces of wood. And so we started going down this one, it was like a deer hunting trail, and started finding a little clusters of wood and slowly started finding a little bone fragments. It's like, "Whoa, is this human or not?" Then found a human tooth. And so basically with that, we had more confidence. We were able to proceed and recover as much of the body as possible, even though it was very small, teeny tiny pieces. We still had evidence that we had an adult male. And at the time, I mean this is 2004, so DNA was not a thing in terms of burned remains being very effective. But yeah, that was a really interesting case too. I mean, people just got creative out in Arkansas, burn pits and whatnot. So I just... I mean, each time I did one of these cases, it would present a thousand questions, like, "Oh my god. Well what about this? What about decomposition? What about traumatic injury? What about...?" All these things that just kind of buzz around in your head. But they all have effects. They all influence how that body burns and what's left the fire scene for investigators.

Rod Ammon: Wow. I hear stories about investigators and how much they're digging, and I'm sort of visually following your story in my mind, and I'm thinking, "What made them go down a deer trail?" And trying to find bone that's the same color as the dirt, it's just wow, patience.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Absolutely, yes.

Rod Ammon: Long, long time. I mean, how long were you guys out there?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: We were out there for about a day. And I had other students from the university that I brought with me because the more sets of eyeballs you have, the better. In this case, with it being an outdoor scene, it was good to have multiple people. Now inside a fire scene, like a structure or vehicle, you don't want a bunch of boot traffic in there. So that would be approached a little bit differently.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, once you found something, I guess at that point you got to do what you can to secure the scene. I mean, how do you think about something like that outside with that kind of evidence?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Luckily we had law enforcement. We were always assisted by law enforcement. We don't just go out to people's properties and look for stuff. They had already secured the scene. They had already gotten search warrants, so that was already taken care of. They just said, "Hey, come help. We need help finding this victim's body." But it did take all day because the one site we were looking at, there was nothing there. They basically turned it all up with a big excavator to destroy the original scene. But like I said, luckily we were able to find a start looking on the ground, started seeing little clusters of black pieces of burned wood, and it's like, "Well, this shouldn't be here."

Rod Ammon: And why was it there? Was it scattered afterwards?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, he totally scattered the remains on his property. So it was not only the event of burning the body, breaking it down into small pieces of ash or small bone fragments. But then also scattering it, trying to get rid of the evidence of the body. So that was kind of a secondary step as well, which was kind of important going to the case during trial.

Rod Ammon: So what do you do? I'm just imagining all of these college students and others and law enforcement securing the scene, which I'm sure is incredibly helpful.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Oh, yeah.

Rod Ammon: So at that moment, do you sort of stop, everybody says, "Okay, this is what we're looking at," and you sort of take a leadership within another investigator yourself? How did you-

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Oh, yeah.

Rod Ammon: ... move on?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yeah, absolutely. So I had... They were also students of forensic anthropology, so they knew bones, they knew tiny pieces of bones. So not only do forensic anthropologists study whole bones, which is pretty easy, but when you start looking at teeny tiny little pieces trying to figure out was this arm, is this leg, is this human or non-human. They brought that training with them to the field, which is why I kind of drug them along. Once we started finding stuff, I'd call people over and say, "Look. This is what this looks like. This is what we're looking for. Train your eye on it and see if you can start to see it, not only the bone itself, but then also look for the clusters of the charcoal in the wood," which was kind of the dead giveaway for some of it. In other cases, the bones were just found isolated. Bones and teeth were found isolated luckily on the top surface of the soil. The other thing too is that it rained, which was really good because it kind of pedestaled those mineralized bone fragments on top of the soil and probably washed some down. I mean, I'm sure there was some little bit of fluvial movement there. But yeah, it was a really interesting case. And so like I said, that brought on a whole new host of questions. Well, what happens when you pulverize the body? What happens when you want to intentionally not only destroy evidence of the body, but then also take it to a secondary location? Because sometimes that happens with regular crimes. You'll murder somebody and then decide to dump the body somewhere else at a secondary location. So that complicates the case. But this one was just really interesting in terms of how did they get the body to this point and why why are we finding him here in this condition? And so it was a really interesting case.

Rod Ammon: I'm guessing there was a lot of evidence collection and marking and photography and all kinds of things. You said there was not a [inaudible 00:18:50].

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Split up the whole hillside with flags.

Rod Ammon: Was the final identification from dental?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: It may have been. I'm not sure. That was sent to the crime lab as far as identification. Once we recovered the remains, they were basically sent off to the medical examiner's office. We did a report to, the determination of personal identification fell on the state crime lab at Arkansas.

Rod Ammon: Any other cases you can think of where the knowledge of dealing with a fatal fire really helped an investigator make a case of a body in a fatal fire? Whether it has to do with patterns, ventilation, other things you can think of? Maybe it's a car fire. Trying to think of any other stories that we could share with the audience that might help you remember something down the road.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: I mean, I could talk about that one example I gave in the CFITrainer of the body laying on the floor and the ventilation patterns that severely burned his body versus the woman that was in the bed in the corner of the room.

Rod Ammon: Why don't you do that? We'll have a... Give people a teaser, shall we say, to the module.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: One scenario that we did in terms of looking at differences of two bodies burned in the same room, the configuration of the layout was basically a one bedroom apartment in an apartment complex. And so we had an open door, we had a hallway, there was an open bedroom door, a victim laying on the floor, and then an open window. In the same room, there was a woman lying on a bed in the corner of the room. So given the two bodies in the same room, but the ventilation patterns that did the most damage to the body that was laying on the floor resulted from that door being open. So we had kind of the chimney effect coming through that open door, through that hallway rushing over the body and then out the window. Whereas the fire pattern on the woman in the corner of the room, she was very minimal burn damage because she was up against the wall. The bed was up against the wall up against corners. And so she was much more protected, even though they burned the same duration, same temperatures and whatnot. But the fire dynamics really played a role in the different amount of damage. So the one on the floor in the ventilation path, absolutely completely burned down to soft tissues and bones. Whereas the woman in the bed, she had a little damage on her head, but not excessive soft tissue damage. And it was like an eight-minute fire, it wasn't too long. But the body will move during the fire, shrinking of the muscles. It's going to pull on their attachment sites to bones. And that's going to cause the arms to move, the fingers, hand, wrist, legs. And so not only do we see fire damage to the body, but we see the body is totally moved and totally repositioned and changed as a result of being exposed to heat. So the original lying position of the body can totally change just from heat exposure. Or say, for example, you have a body that's burning initially on a bed. Well, that body can actually roll off during the fire and end up in a completely separate location from where it was originally positioned. So the fire is really not only the dynamics of the fire itself, but then also the furnishings they're laying on. As the mattress material burns away, the body suspended on coil springs, springs start to anneal, the body starts to move. And in some cases it can fall off of beds, it can fall out of chairs. And so there's movement of the body itself, but then also changes in the fire environment as the body's collapsing or rolling off or just changing its position during the fire itself, just from the pugilistic posture.

Rod Ammon: If people want to learn more about that, they can go up to CFITrainer. And I'm going to talk about it a little bit towards the wrap up, but there's a module looking at that scene with a lot of visualization and notation and explanation of everything to do with that scene. You mentioned cars or a car fire. And I'm just thinking, can you talk a little bit about the challenges tied to a car fire in identifying a body there? And maybe you have an example, maybe you don't.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yeah, sure. So with vehicle fires are totally different than structure fires. Small little contained metal box. And so your search area is going to be significantly less. It's going to be mostly contained to the vehicle, unless if there's suppression, where in some cases bone fragments can be projected outside of the vehicle. But in terms of search, everything's contained there. One of the things that depends on the location of the body within the vehicle, the type of vehicle, what the body was sitting on. So if it was sitting on like an elevated bucket style seat, it's going to keep that body raised the entire time. So the main part of the body is going to stay elevated on that metal framework, whereas the smaller body parts are actually going to fall and separate, and they're going to fall into the floorboard. They're going to fall into the backseat. And so not only is it just the main body itself that has to be investigated and searched and eventually recovered, but then also those smaller bone pieces, because there could be teeth, there could be fingers. Those finger bones could have very important evidence. Cut wounds, defensive wounds. The bones are going to hold that type of evidence all throughout the fire. Traumatic injury, gunshot wounds, blunt force injury, stab wounds and whatnot. But you got to search for them, you got to get dirty, you got to get in there and look for them, because otherwise, if you don't look for them, then that evidence is destroyed forever. Particularly if you have people crawling around with boots and whatnot, that can cause significant crushing damage. Say for example, the body's in the trunk. Okay, so that's a really contained space. And it acts a little bit more like a miniature crematorium. Or basically once the taillights burn out, you'll get airflow into the trunk as well as the upper back seat materials burning away. And so it takes longer to burn because the body's laying most likely on a flat surface in the base of the trunk, or it could be elevated on a wheel well. But that body that's burning back there will burn very differently than the one in the passenger compartment. So it does depend on where the body's located within the vehicle. But vehicle fires, I mean, after 30 minutes you can start to see inside the flames start to die down a little bit. Leading up to that time it's pretty much engulfed. And then of course you get failure of the windows, and then you get more airflow in. And so it really keeps the fire going. But after a while, it starts to kind of die down. And at that point, the body can be partially cremated as it burns longer, which can actually happen for several hours. With [inaudible 00:26:15] being kind of flat surface, the rendered fat during the fire is going to slowly drip below the body and actually fuel the fire underneath. So you've got not only retention of bone fragments, but you also have retention of the body fat. And so that's also going to fuel the fire underneath the body and cause damage under there as well as to the backside and the upper chair section.

Rod Ammon: I'm guessing that most of the time somebody's trying to get rid of a body or remove evidence. Is that the case?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Sometimes. Sometimes it's accidental. That's the case I get involved. Ones where it's more challenging, it's more difficult. Is there evidence this person had injury? Because a lot of times you may see the defects totally pristine and preserved at the scene, but once that body is taken out of that vehicle, put in a body bag and then transported to the morgue, that body could totally fall apart, particularly if it's a skull. So if you have like a gunshot wound or blunt force injury or anything like that, the scene photo is may be the only surviving evidence of that injury. And that's why it's so important to really concentrate and slowly proceed with scene documentation and not rush to get the body out out of the scene.

Rod Ammon: Sounds like one of the number one points is don't move the body and protect it and protect the scene around it.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yes.

Rod Ammon: Thanks for sharing those stories. Are there any trends, some newer factors or circumstances that you're seeing in fire death cases?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: I mean, now there's more attention to actually investigating in the scene, which is, we're not there yet, but it's improving in terms of the mindset of, "Okay, well, let's get the victim out of here. I don't want to see it. I don't want it in my scene. I want to be able to do my job." And everybody has a job, but with a fatality, you're speaking for the victim. There's absolutely no reason to hastily try to remove the victim and get him out of the scene because you're just going to damage evidence. And if it goes to court, that's problematic. The scene was rushed through or if the body was completely removed without documentation, that's information loss. And that can not hurt the case, but it makes it a little bit more challenging to prosecute those cases when evidence has been pretty much damaged or destroyed. And like I said, in cases where the body is hastily removed, the medical examiner or coroner, they may not see the injury that the field investigator saw. And without the field investigator's photographs, that evidence can be lost eternally.

Rod Ammon: Yeah. We've covered pretty much that we need to protect the scene and not move it, but what are some other critical mistakes that investigators often make at a fatal fire scene, and what do you think they should avoid?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: One critical mistake that investigators can make at a fire scene, in addition to hastily moving the body, is to not excavate it, is to not dig out the scene. You have to get dirty. You have to get in there, dig through the debris, sift through the debris, look for any type of evidence. It could be personal effects, it could be jewelry, it could be parts of the body, it could be weapons. You might find a bullet or whatnot. But if the fire debris is not sifted and excavated, again, it's lost. It's destroyed. They overhaul it, and then a week later it's a Dollar General. So at that point, all that information is lost forever. So handling is a big thing as well as properly doing it right the first time. With a crime scene as well as a fire scene, you only get one chance. You can't put things back the way they originally were. And so if it's rushed in the beginning, that's going to have negative impacts on the investigation. And that's going to impact the investigator who's leading it up, whose case it is, and hopefully they do it right.

Rod Ammon: You're inquisitive. What research questions interest you now? What are you working on?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: So my big one now actually is ignitable liquids on skin. I mean, there's a bunch of ones I'd like to do, but for whatever reason I'm fixated on ignitable liquids on skin as well as clothing. So the cool thing with the presence or absence of clothing makes a huge difference in the types of fire damage that occurs to that body part. So with clothing, clothing acts as a barrier to direct flame impingement. So the skin underneath just basically gets radiant heat damage, so it dehydrates it. Whereas direct flame impingement is completely different on exposed or on naked skin. And so the fire effects are really different. But in looking at ignitable liquids too, your skin's waterproof. So you pour ignitable liquids on the skin and it basically is going to roll off and pool and burn next to the body if it's lying on the floor or whatever. But I want to start to see if I can replicate flow patterns where, say for example, somebody is doused with ignitable liquids, they're standing up later collapse, what do those original fire patterns look like? And can I replicate them? This is all stuff buzzing in my head, really. But that, and then, I don't know, I mean, there's just tons of things that could be kind of tested and whatnot. But right now I'm kind of, for whatever reason, interested in looking at ignitable liquids, what it does to the skin, what it does to soft tissues. In some cases it doesn't do a lot of damage at all. If it's ignitable liquids on just exposed skin, the fire goes out and the flames go out in like a minute. So it doesn't do much damage at all. But you have clothing. Clothing retains it. It absorbs it. It's going to hold those ignitable liquids much longer. And then on top of that, then you'll start to get involvement of body fat because it's burning much longer. And so the body fat will fuel it way past the ignitable liquids. So it turns into a rendered subcutaneous fat-fueled fire rather than ignitable liquid-fueled fire.

Rod Ammon: Some of these things seem so strangely motivated, but that's part of crime scenes and what you do. So it sort of takes me back when I'm trying to ask questions or think about this. What are we missing? What haven't I asked? When you think about this, what would you like to get across to fire investigators out there?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Well, another important thing is suppression, the effects of suppression. How does suppression... Okay, so the fire damages the body. Suppression can do a whole lot of damage because that body's really fragile. And if you hit it with that pressurized column of water, it's going to bust apart the skull, it's going to break body parts off. As opposed to fogging, which is more evidence preservation. It rains and it showers over the body, so better evidence preservation. So I guess suppression tactics are another important aspect that impacts fire investigation, because if the body's been severely damaged just from suppression, well, you may not be able to see that gunshot wound that was there in the head before the fire was extinguished. So that's another point that I try to point out in addition to don't move the remains until the scene has been properly investigated and excavated.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, it's similar to what we've taught from the fire investigator's perspective about overhaul.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Yes. Oh, that's another one.

Rod Ammon: It's something you want to say?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Oh yeah, yeah. A scene overhaul is another one. So you get boots and hoses through the scene. And of course firefighters are doing their job, but you can't see anything. There's smoke, there's steam, it's dark. And so in some cases the body may get stepped on. The hose may get drug over it. All these things that can happen, like I said, in addition to the fire damage. And this goes back to, "Okay, secure the scene." You don't want a million people walking through that scene being looky-loos, wanting to see a victim's body. So with that... And again, this goes to evidence preservation of making sure during the overhaul process of moving large objects... I mean, when you're searching for a body, obviously if it's partially buried or fully buried, you're not going to find it until some of that larger debris is removed. But say for example, you bring in an excavator and you don't know there's a body in there, well that can do significant damage. So overhaul activities, suppression activities, most of the post-fire activities do way more damage than the fire itself.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, I'm thinking about the challenges. You mentioned it. As a firefighter, you want to be safe. First of all, you want to get the fire out.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: 100%

Rod Ammon: And you can't see. All these challenges and I'm thinking to myself, "Wow. What can we share?" It's like, "Well, be careful."

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Right. Right. Yeah,

Rod Ammon: I mean, there just doesn't seem to be a checklist to make this easy. But once you understand that you have a fatal fire, how important it is to do the things that you've already discussed. What a bunch of challenges. And not to mention the emotional toll and the stress that come-

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Oh, absolutely.

Rod Ammon: ... with this for firefighters and for fire investigators. One thing I'm thinking about, we've always taught to fire investigators, not that I've taught, but what we've shared with fire investigators through productions and that kind of thing has always been, if you don't have what you need, because you're very often alone, how do you find somebody? So I'm figuring that there isn't a quick search on Google for forensic anthropologists. So what should fire investigators do to prepare themselves?

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: In each state there are forensic anthropologists. Now, some of them work at medical examiner's offices or coroner's offices. Most work at universities. They are eager to come out and help. All you have to do is figure out what local universities you have or what forensic anthropologists may be working at the crime lab or on contract with the crime lab. These guys love to get dirty. We love to get our hands dirty. We love to find bones, we love to help out. And most of them, I shouldn't say this, but most of them will probably do it for free as service, as service. So those resources are available. You just got to know that they're there. But universities, I mean, if they have an anthropology department, chances are they have somebody who studies bones. Ideally, you want somebody that has forensic anthropology because some anthropologists study primate bones and that's going to be worthless. But yeah, the resources are there. You just got to know according what state, what part of the state you live in, all this stuff. But those resources are totally there in terms of being able to just be a phone call away and say, "Hey, come to the scene. Hey, help me. What am I looking at?" Sometimes I do it off of photographs and investigators will be at a scene, they'll text me some photographs with a scale, and I can kind of help guide them, "Yes, this is bone. No, that's not bone. Just move on." So that way they're not holding it and waiting, holding up the whole investigation because they need one particular answer. But like I said, forensic anthropologists, we love to come out and get dirty. And that's what I got.

Rod Ammon: And as we've always said, and I've heard it from so many fire investigators, the time to exchange business cards isn't always... The best time to exchange business cards is often not at the scene. So it's a good idea to maybe find this kind of resource, find this forensic anthropologist in advance.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Sure.

Rod Ammon: You might learn something from them and have somebody in your Rolodex or in your phone these days.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Absolutely. Yeah, just Google it. Google whatever university's close to you or whoever's in the state or your crime lab and find out, because chances are you're going to find one and they're going to be so eager to come out and help.

Rod Ammon: I am very grateful, so thank you Dr. Pope.

Dr. Elayne Pope Ph.D: Thank you.

Rod Ammon: One of the things we think is most effective in the podcast is hearing from people with your expertise, practitioners in the field. So we thank you for sharing. Dr. Pope was one of the experts on the team that developed CFITrainer.net's three modules on fatal fires, two of which have recently launched. We have links to those modules on this podcast episode's page at cfitrainer.net/podcast under our 2025 episodes. They'll give you a strong foundation to build on with additional in-person training. Dr. Pope periodically teaches the IAAI's Fire Fatality Investigation In-Person course. You can find available sessions of that course on firearson.com. We have a direct link to the course in the links for this episode. This podcast and CFITrainer.Net are made possible by funding from a Fire Prevention and Safety Grant from the Assistance to Firefighters grant program administered by FEMA and the US Department of Homeland Security. Support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive as well, and voluntary online donations from CFITrainer.Net users and podcast listeners. Thanks for joining us today on the podcast. Stay safe. We'll see you next month. For the IAAI and CFITrainer.Net, I'm Rod Ammon.

Fatal Fires: An Introduction

Fatal Fires: Fire Effects on the Body

Fatal Fires: Investigation

IAAI’s Fire Fatality Investigation in-person course

Fatal Fire Forensics

IAAI International Training Conference