About
John Lentini has been at the center of most of the important developments in fire investigation for the past 45 years. He began his career at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in 1974. There, he learned forensic science in general and fire debris analysis in particular and received an introduction to fire scene investigation.
He went into private practice in 1977 and spent the next 10 years working 100 to 150 fire scenes per year, mostly for insurance companies that had doubts about the legitimacy of their insureds’ fire losses. At the same time, he managed a fire debris analysis laboratory with a nationwide clientele.
He has been a vocal advocate for the standardization of both laboratory and field investigations of fires. As co-chair of the International Association of Arson Investigators’ (IAAI) Forensic Science Committee, he was the principal author of the first fire debris analysis standards published by the IAAI in 1988. He oversaw the acceptance of those standards by ASTM Committee E30 on Forensic Sciences, where he served for two terms as chairman of the Criminalistics Subcommittee and for three terms as main committee chairman. His work with ASTM earned him their Forensic Science Award and the Award of Merit.
Lentini has been a certified fire investigator since certification first became available and was among the first group of individuals certified by the American Board of Criminalistics (ABC) as Fellows in fire debris analysis. He is one of the few individuals in the world who has held certifications
for both laboratory and field work.
He has been a contributor to the development of National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 921, Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations, and was a member of the NFPA’s Technical Committee on Fire Investigations from 1996 to 2018. On that committee, he was instrumental in the development of committee positions on accelerant detection canines, the concept of the “negative corpus,” and the acceptance of the scientific method.
Featured Work
Twice Burned: A Fire Sciientist's Adventures in Overturning and Preventing Wrongful Arson Convictions
Twice Burned, my case study book, is finally ready. Every chapter tells a story, and every case study teaches a lesson.
Each of these cases set off a chain of events that influence the way we understand fires. From the Lime Street and Girdler cases that ignited the “flashover defense” controversy, to the Carr case that started the “Dog Wars,” to the Clark case that led to the discovery of how to distinguish asphalt from petroleum distillates, these are cases that all started out with a determination of arson that could not be sustained.
As Donald Berwick, one of the pioneers of the modern patient safety movement stated, “Every defect is a treasure.” We don’t learn so much from our successes as from our failures. The great American philosopher Grouch Marx said, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You don’t have time to make them all yourself!”
An abstract of each chapter can be found at this link.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003603894/twice-burned-john-lentini?refId=538a9330-7eb1-4c1c-8f21-72347b254d93&context=ubx
The link will take you to a 25% off publisher’s coupon and additional information about the book.
For more information visit:
www.routledge.com/9781032993867
