What are 'fire accelerants' and how are they used to progress a fire?

What are 'fire accelerants' and how are they used to progress a fire?

Richard Saferstein (Former Chief Forensic Scientist) gives expert video advice on: How does a fire ignite?; How does learning where the fire originated help in CSI?; How does a fire grow? and more...

Fire accelerants are materials, chemicals that support combustion and will speed up the fire process. Typically the most fire accelerant is gasoline. You can well imagine if you spread some gasoline on a wooden floor and add a match to that what's going to happen. You are going to have an intense fire that will spread quickly throughout that structure. There are other fire accelerants that are used besides gas, typically there's kerosene, lighter fluid -- there are a whole slew of, charcoal lighter fluid, there are a whole slew of fuels and oil-based materials that are available to the general public that can be used as fire accelerants. But again the accelerant is used to initiate the fire and to make sure that the fire consumes the structure that it was intended to consume. That's the crime of arson.