Investigations to Identify Electrical Ignitions of Fires. The Sleuth Engineer Can Draw from an Array of Tools

In power systems complying with the best practices, the electrical ignition has to remain only possible for accidental causes. Generally, it is not easy to identify the fire origin because the fire destroys all things. At the aim to assist the investigations, this paper suggests a deductive approach in matching possible hypotheses on electrical ignitions. It analyzes the different evolutions that characterize the faults in a primary distribution versus to the faults in a branch distribution. As an application, this paper illustrates a case study of the ignition of a fire that affected two fabrics storage rooms and a transformers substation that was adjacent.