Abstract: For arson cases involved with ignitable liquids, the identifications of ignitable liquid residues are of vital importance in determining the nature of the fire cases, hence the construction of relevant physical evidence identification standards is of great significance. Based on the overall introduction of the American Materials Testing Association, the Australian Standards Committee and China's ignitable liquid identification standard system, the study herein focused on five aspects in standards of China and other countries, including the classification of ignitable liquids, environmental conditions for preserving ignitable liquid residues, identifications of characteristic compounds in ignitable liquids, interfering factors and appraisal reports and made horizontal comparisons. The results showed that the identification standards for ignitable liquids in China and other countries varied when it comes to the specific identification procedures. Foreign standards have a certain reference for the revision of China's standards in terms of the preservation of material evidence, the analysis of interfering factors and the composition of appraisal reports, which was proved to be instructive for the improvement of the ignitable liquid identification criteria in China.

Key words: arson, physical evidence identification, fire debris, identification of ignitable liquid, standards of ignitable liquid residues