**6.1. General considerations**

Fire fatality involves complex causes of death; major lethal factors involved in fire death are burns and inhalation of toxic gases, including CO and cyanide, which are produced by combustion, accompanied by smoke and ambient oxygen depletion (Stefanidou et al., 2008). Despite recent advances in clinical burn and CO intoxication care measures (Ipaktchi & Arbabi, 2006; Prockop & Chichkova, 2007), most fire victims are found dead, and in those found alive, severe burns or brain damage from CO intoxication can cause death despite intensive clinical care. In such cases, it is necessary to clarify the cause and process of death in a fire. In forensic casework, however, it may be difficult to determine the predominant cause of death due to fire or to exclude other causes of death, for which acute heart attack and asphyxiation are of particular interest, especially when clinical toxicological data are not available in cases of prolonged death without severe burns. In this respect, previous studies showed pulmonary pathology, and systemic hematological and biochemical disorders due to burns (Zhu et al., 2001a; Zhu et al., 2001b), while brain immunohistochemistry suggested specific findings of CO intoxication (Michiue et al., 2008). Thus, immunohistochemical markers in the brain that are involved in neuronal damage, apoptosis, degeneration and repair, including ssDNA, GFAP and bFGF, are useful to detect the specific neuropathology of CO intoxication for differentiation from fatal burns as well as other fatal insults.
