There is no material more ubiquitous in the paradigm of modern society than wood. It can be found in just about any occupancy used for construction, furniture, paneling, and many forms of ornamentation, and decoration.
Wood also is of use to a fire investigator.
One of the products of wood combustion is char. This paper attempts to investigate the origin of wood char and understand its significance to the fire investigator. To understand the origin of char, it is first necessary to understand the parent material of the char, or the original wood. Wood is an inhomogenous, nonisotropic material composed of high molecular weight natural polymers. Its principle constituents are cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin.