Aug 16, 2026 · 25 min · 10 segments
In this episode, I sit down with **John Lentini**, one of the most respected voices in the field of fire investigation and fire science. Drawing on decades of experience, John has played an important…
Rich O'ConnorHost
Your first chapter of your new book, Twice Burned, uh, you kind of go over a lot of that, the history and, of, of you, and you know, I, I was able to read it and it's a great book.
It- the reason I like it is because it's, uh, for a fire investigator you get some really good cautionary tales, right? There's a lot of cases in there.
And I'll be honest with you, there was a couple where I was like, man, if I was on the other side, I might have made that same decision.
the fact that he sent sentimental, uh, items to his mother, and had the shirts at the cleaners, and all the shoes and the will sent to his office, I mean, you hear that stuff and you're like, "Well, that's very suspicious." You know, you've been through a lot, you've seen a lot in fire investigation, basically since, uh, 1973 when you started with the GBI.
Well, the, the main one is that people have decided that this is a scientific endeavor, and believe it or not, people fought that tooth and nail right up until the turn of the century.
For the 2001 edition of NFPA 921, there were like 500 public inputs that said, "You need to stop talking about science, 'cause this is not really scientific.
You should call it a systematic procedure." And the committee voted 30 to nothing against that.
And it was about that time, right around 2000, that the IAAI got on board and they, they endorsed the adoption of 921, they endorsed doing scientific, uh, analyses of fire scenes.
It's not just, "Oh, I know it when I see it," or, "I've had, you know, on-the-job training." That, that's number one.
So having a standard that, that is generally accepted is, is the most important thing, I believe, that's, that's happened to fire investigation.
Your first chapter of your new book, Twice Burned, uh, you kind of go over a lot of that, the history and, of, of you, and you know, I, I was able to read it and it's a great book.
It- the reason I like it is because it's, uh, for a fire investigator you get some really good cautionary tales, right? There's a lot of cases in there.
And I'll be honest with you, there was a couple where I was like, man, if I was on the other side, I might have made that same decision.
the fact that he sent sentimental, uh, items to his mother, and had the shirts at the cleaners, and all the shoes and the will sent to his office, I mean, you hear that stuff and you're like, "Well, that's very suspicious." You know, you've been through a lot, you've seen a lot in fire investigation, basically since, uh, 1973 when you started with the GBI.
Well, the, the main one is that people have decided that this is a scientific endeavor, and believe it or not, people fought that tooth and nail right up until the turn of the century.
For the 2001 edition of NFPA 921, there were like 500 public inputs that said, "You need to stop talking about science, 'cause this is not really scientific.
You should call it a systematic procedure." And the committee voted 30 to nothing against that.
And it was about that time, right around 2000, that the IAAI got on board and they, they endorsed the adoption of 921, they endorsed doing scientific, uh, analyses of fire scenes.
It's not just, "Oh, I know it when I see it," or, "I've had, you know, on-the-job training." That, that's number one.
So having a standard that, that is generally accepted is, is the most important thing, I believe, that's, that's happened to fire investigation.
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