Fire Loss

Packer Engineering was involved in a case involving a large arts & crafts retail establishment. Our client contacted us well after the incident and we were relying on the documentation provided by an outside investigation firm. The building had sustained significant structural damage as well as a total loss of contents as a result of a suspected arson in a corner of the store. Our client had installed the fire protection system and was being sued because the system reportedly failed to activate and control the fire.

We analyzed the computer model that had been used to by the plaintiff as well as performed our own computer modeling using the Fire Dynamics Simulator. We showed that based on the witness reports, fire department reports, and the computer modeling that prior to the activation of the first sprinkler smoke would have spread throughout the store and contaminated the products rendering them un-saleable. This significantly reduced our client’s potential exposure. We then showed that based on the plaintiff's own computer modeling that temperatures in the area around the fire would have been significant enough that structural failure of the steel support structure would have occurred, resulting in structural failure of more than 25% of the building. At the conclusion our client settled during mediation for a fraction of their initial exposure and avoided the costly court process which they had been convinced they couldn’t avoid.

Photographs Help Free Innocent Man

News reports have increased surrounding the validity of convictions of several death row inmates. A local attorney asked Packer Engineering to review an investigation surrounding one of these arson-based convictions. Packer has a long history of performing scientific investigations and we used our 40 years of engineering and investigative experience to evaluate this arson fire.

The original investigation determined the alleged perpetrator deliberately set fire to a Chicago apartment building in 1987. This incendiary fire killed seven people. The investigation and subsequent trial resulted in the conviction of a tenant for the crime of arson and murder, for which he subsequently received a death sentence.

After Packer Engineering's review of the file, it became apparent there were serious technical errors in the investigation and its findings. Even though this was an old fire scene, it was well documented through photographs, testimony, and reports.

Several Packer engineers plus a Certified Fire Investigator from our Chemical, Fire & Explosion Group spent hundreds of hours studying the fire scene photographs, witness testimony, expert reports and opinions of both the prosecution and defense experts. The prosecution expert's opinions were contrary to the fire scene evidence and the science of fire dynamics. We employed the standard metric "Scientific Method" to evaluate all of this material and technical issues from which we were able to form our final opinions.

Packer Engineering submitted a technical report and testimony asserting this was an incendiary fire with no physical evidence that the convicted man set the fire. This analysis and the subsequent opinions were a factor in the State of Illinois' decision to commute the sentence and pardon Mr. Madison Hobely.