Methods of chemical analysis applied to the wood fire investigation: a review

Wood fire residues can be found in various stages from less damaged material, pyrolysis products (a char) to deeply damaged material (ash). Moreover, wood burning can be influenced by fire accelerators and/or flame retardants. This paper provides a brief description and evaluation of conventional and comprehensive variants of analytical techniques with examples of their various applications at analyses of wood materials and wood fire residues. They include specificities of sampling, elemental chemical analysis, thermal analysis, extraction of compounds from fire debris, chromatographic methods and mass spectrometry, spectroscopic methods, chemometrics and quality assurance.