4.1 This practice is useful for preparing extracts from fire debris for subsequent analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (see Test Method E1618).

4.2 This practice is useful to reduce potential fractionation during separation, such as when attempting to distinguish between various grades of fuel oil.

4.3 This practice is particularly useful for extraction from nonporous surfaces such as glass, or the interior of burned containers. It is also well suited to the extraction of ignitable liquid residues from samples that are not amenable to extraction using Practice E1412.

4.4 This practice lacks specificity to separate and isolate ignitable liquids from interfering compounds present in the fire debris.

4.5 This practice is not suitable for the extraction of extremely volatile compounds and ignitable liquids (for example, acetone, butane, ethanol, propane, some cigarette lighter fluids), which could evaporate during the concentration step.

4.6 This is a destructive technique. Whenever possible, this technique should only be used when a representative portion of the sample can be preserved for reanalysis. Those portions of the sample subjected to this procedure could be unsuitable for resampling. If sample spoliation is an issue, a nondestructive extraction technique (for example, Practices E1412, E2154) should be used prior to this technique.