Fire Litigation Support - Fire Experts
Dr. Carlos Fernandez-Pello is an internationally-recognized fire expert with 30 years of fire litigation experience. He has published hundreds of journal and conference papers related to combustion and fire. Dr. Fernandez-Pello received a PhD from the University of California San Diego in 1975 with a dissertation on fire spread. His post-doctoral work took him to Harvard and Princeton Universities where he conducted fire and combustion research. In 1980, Dr. Fernandez-Pello became Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he has remained since.
Professor Fernandez-Pello has testified as a fire expert witness in several State and Federal courts. His fire litigation activities have involved many aspects of fires such as ignition of solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels; flame spread and fire spread; flammable liquid pool fire burning; self heating and spontaneous combustion; smoldering and transition from smolder to flaming; ignition of spot fires by embers and heated particles; wildland fires; vehicle fires; warehouse and industrial fires and explosions; laptop fires; smoke detector product liability; residential fires; fire reconstruction and modeling; and many other areas. It is this broad range of experience that makes Dr. Fernandez-Pello an effective fire expert witness across many areas of fire and combustion science.
Carlos Fernandez-Pello's resume/curriculum vitae.
Chris Lautenberger received an MS in Fire Protection Engineering from WPI with a thesis related to computational fluid dynamics modeling of fires, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (Combustion) from the University of California Berkeley with a dissertation related to materials' flammability and fire modeling. Before joining Reax Engineering, his work experience included building code consulting and performance-based fire protection engineering design at Arup Fire (San Francisco, California) and Code Consultants, Inc. (St. Louis, Missouri), and several years of fire litigation support as an independent technical consultant. Dr. Lautenberger is a licensed Fire Protection Engineer in the State of California, making him one of the few fire experts that understands real world fire protection engineering design, highly technical fire dynamics details, and issues specific to fire litigation.
One of Dr. Lautenberger's
areas of expertise is computer fire modeling and its application to forensic
fire reconstruction. He is a leading fire expert in the rapidly growing
field of fire growth modeling where computational fluid dynamics is used
to predict how fires would spread under different conditions. Dr. Lautenberger
is highly skilled at applying fire modeling to investigate how fires would
be affected by fire protection systems such as sprinklers, smoke control
systems, and roof vents; determine activation times of fire detection systems
such as smoke detectors; assess how various materials or products would
contribute to fire development; and determine when a building would become
untenable due to smoke or heat. Due to his fire growth modeling expertise,
Dr. Lautenberger was recently invited to participate as a panel member,
alongside several other international fire experts, at the Fire Spread
Modeling Workshop 
held
at the 9th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science. Dr. Lautenberger
has published several journal and conference papers on different aspects
of flammability, fire modeling, ignition of solid combustibles, computational
fluid dynamics modeling of fires, and related topics.
Chris Lautenberger's resume/curriculum vitae.
David Rich received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley, with a NASA sponsored dissertation related to ignition of solid fuels. Dr. Rich worked as a fire protection engineer at Arup Fire in San Francisco and is currently an adjunct professor at Santa Clara University (California) where he teaches Fluid Mechanics, Combustion, and Fire Dynamics.
Dr. Rich is a fire expert with comprehensive experience in the fire testing laboratory and with sophisticated analysis and modeling tools. Although he routinely applies modeling and analysis to answer questions related to fire litigation, his primary area of expertise is development of experimental platforms for the study of fire phenomena such as igniton and flame spread. Dr. Rich is an expert in infrared (IR) thermography, particle image velocimetry (PIV), planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF), gas chromatography, Schlieren interferometry, mass loss rate measurement during pyrolysis and combustion, heat release rate measurement by oxygen consumption calorimetry, high speed video, and in-situ gas sampling.
David Rich's resume/curriculum vitae.
Carman and Associates Fire Investigation - Steven Carman
For cases or projects with a large fire investigation component, Reax Engineering partners with ATF Senior Special Agent (retired) Steve Carman. Mr. Carman, owner of Carman and Associates Fire Investigation (Grass Valley, California), is a widely-respected fire expert with more than 20 years of fire investigation experience. He served as a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms from 1988 to 2008, during which time he was assigned to the Sacramento and Redding, California offices. He received his certification as an ATF Certified Fire Investigator in 1993 and spent more than nine years as a member of the ATF's Western National Response Team. Special Agent Carman graduated from the US Coast Guard Academy in 1980 with a BS degree with High Honors in Physical Sciences. Prior to joining ATF, he served six years as a Coast Guard officer including two as Commanding Officer (afloat) of the USCG Cutter Cape Jellison. After that he spent two years in the private sector working in chemical and mechanical engineering.
Mr. Carman has investigated several hundred fires with more than 70 fire deaths and average fire losses of more than $1,000,000. He has conducted and led numerous complex arson and explosives investigations in Northern California resulting in many successful federal and state prosecutions. He has lectured internationally on various aspects of fire science and investigation including fire dynamics, fire chemistry, and fire modeling. Due to his scientific background and work with fire chemistry and physics, Mr. Carman has focused much of his work and research towards the study of "unusual" fire behavior and its recognition during investigations. Among his works was the publishing of an ATF monograph in October 1994 detailing his conclusions regarding a nationally puzzling fire phenomenon dubbed "High Temperature Accelerants". In 2004 at the Annual Meeting of the National Fire Protection Association, Special Agent Carman presented his study of the spontaneous ignition of a truckload of ammonium nitrate- containing explosives. His most recent work has revolved around efforts to simplify the understanding of post-flashover fire behavior for the fire investigation community. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Arson Investigators. He is also an adjunct instructor at Cogswell Polytechnic College in California.
Carman and Associates and Reax Engineering provide complementary skills and experience. Together they offer clients a full range of fire expert witness services.
Rapperport and Associates
For cases requiring fire expert witness services related to structural design and analysis, fracture mechanics, fatigue analysis, fractography, and metallurgy, Reax Engineering works closely with Rapperport and Associates, our East coast affiliate.