Penalties for arson cases can be severe. First-degree arson is punishable by any number of years in prison up to life behind bars, while second-degree arson can result in up to 20 years in prison.

Imran Syed, a law professor at the University of Michigan and co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, estimated more than 1,000 people across the country have been wrongfully convicted of arson based on flawed science.

“I’d hope fewer and fewer people are being charged today based on junk fire science, but I know it’s not going to be zero,” Syed said. “We still see people getting it wrong, but we see them kind of acknowledging it, trying to say why (their old technique) fits in the new guidelines, trying to do old techniques under old standards.”

Some local fire departments have their own fire investigators, who often receive specialized training. Others will seek help from sheriff’s offices or the Michigan State Police, which have offered formal fire‑investigation training since 1980 and have trained more than 2,000 investigators.

Westland Assistant Chief Fire Marshal Kelly Eggers said it was “news to me” that some fire investigation techniques have been debunked or are no longer seen as valid. Westland has three fire investigators.

“From my perspective, not much has changed,” Eggers said. “There’s a technology piece that helps us document scenes, making it a lot easier as far as specifically photographic evidence.”

Taking a second look at arson convictions

To prove arson in Michigan, prosecutors must show that a defendant damaged or destroyed a structure, dwelling or personal property by fire or explosives; that the fire was deliberately and intentionally set; and that the defendant acted deliberately and maliciously with the intent to burn, damage or destroy the property.

Fire investigator Robert Trenkle of Redford Township is well-versed in fire investigations, working across the country to take a second look at potentially faulty arson convictions. He questioned the ability of some fire departments to adequately investigate arson cases, especially smaller departments.

Trenkle was a Detroit fire investigator for more than two decades and said he knows he has more experience investigating arsons than most, given Detroit’s history, which includes hundreds of annual Devil’s Night arsons around Halloween from the 1980s through the early 2000s.

He said he often sees investigators who either don’t know what they’re doing or inaccurately label fires as arson.

“There’s nothing wrong with saying I don’t know (what caused a fire),” Trenkle said. “It’s so simple to not be wrong. If you don’t know it’s an arson, if you don’t know it’s accidental, it’s OK. ‘I don’t know’ doesn’t put people in jail and doesn’t stop them from getting insurance claims.”

Small towns, especially, are more prone to this, Trenkle contended, since their employees spend their careers “not doing and not learning” fire investigation techniques.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Syed said they could argue that the people involved may not have known better. But in more recent cases, people should know the science and some techniques they’re using are outdated, he said.

“I have no doubt there are people conducting unscientific investigations today, either because they’re unaware of the science or because, despite the science, they think they know better,” Syed said.

Richard Meier, a fire investigator with Palmetto, Florida-based Meier Fire Investigation, said he, too, sees investigators using old or bad science.

“In cases like that, somebody is being charged with a crime that never actually occurred,” Meier said. “Even when I started getting involved in fire investigations 15 years ago, there were still people kicking and screaming and being drug into the 21^st century who didn’t want to change their ways. … I have done a number of cases where, fortunately to date, I’ve been able to keep people out of prison when it’s not an actual crime.”

Westland’s Eggers said it’s far tougher to pin the arson on a specific person than to prove that arson occurred. He said that when investigating an arson, he will try to identify potential ignition sources and develop a hypothesis about how the source may have come into contact with the burned areas. He’ll collect evidence samples and send them to the Michigan State Police’s laboratory so lab employees can test for accelerants.

Eggers said arsons are “more prevalent than you may expect.” In 2025, he estimated Westland had about 50 fires, half of which officials believed were intentionally set.

Meier, however, said intentional arsons are rare, accounting for about 4% of fires, and these are largely in vehicle fires where someone sets a stolen vehicle on fire to destroy any remaining evidence in a crime.

“Arson for profit is actually fairly rare, despite what insurance companies want you to believe,” Meier said.

A Wayne Co. conviction goes to trial again as defendant claims flawed evidence

Of the eight cases where a defendant convicted of arson has either been exonerated or granted a new trial, William Whateley’s case is the most recent.

Whateley was convicted of arson for a 2017 fire inside his ex-girlfriend’s Westland trailer. In March, Wayne County Circuit Judge Chandra Baker-Robinson granted him a new trial and allowed him to be released on bond.

Whateley’s attorneys said the investigation into the fire relied almost entirely on outdated and unreliable markers that were once believed to be arson indicators, such as purported pour patterns in the front half and living room of the trailer and an uncorroborated K-9 alert, to determine that the fire was intentionally set.