Relationship between the Detectable Amount of Oil Component in Tatami and the Combustion Condition at the Scene of Arson.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the amounts of kerosene poured at the scene of arson. Several analytical methods have been carried out to detect kerosene in fire debris. There is no study to compare the methods quantitatively. First we discussed comparison about several analytical methods, and got the conclusion that the most sensitive method was found to be the analysis using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) after extracting by ether. The detection limit of this methed was 0.05 µg/g.The kerosene concentration of tatami had an effect on the condition of combustion. We estimated the diffusion speed of kerosene sprinkled on tatami. We conducted experiments to check the condition of tatami burning, due to the amount of kerosene. Furthermore, we showed the evidence to get fire debris from the inside not the surface to get information about the kerosene amount.