In a leafy suburb in Maryland, about 20 minutes from Washington, D.C. there is a large warehouse. And inside of this very large

warehouse is a scene of an American living room.

On any given day, there might be a television set in this living room tucked into a corner or a

lazy boy recliner covered in cat hair or a couch with a bag of potato chips, you know, tucked into the side.

Maybe there's even a shag carpet and some framed photos. Jumble of shoes. It's even a shag carpet and some framed photos,

Jumble of shoes.

It's all a scene of kind of simple domestic life.

Except then the people who work in this very large warehouse

come and set this living room on fire.

I'm Delantheras and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today we visit the Fire Research Laboratory at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,

Firearms and explosives.

And we're going to meet somebody who spends his days building and then burning

America's living rooms. That's after this. John Allen is the chief of the ATF Fire Research Laboratory in the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and he has been running the lab for 12 years now. And describing exactly what John does for a living, it's a little complicated. It is not your average day job.

I don't know if you're married or have a partner but you know when you're making small talk at a like a party

And someone asks what you do for a living what do you what do you say? That's a really good question because if I tell them I I

run the world's largest fire research laboratory doing fire and arson

investigation they usually kind of look at me funny and don't

understand what that is if I tell them I'm the chief of a federal crime lab that

spurs a little more conversation because the CSI effect obviously hits everybody and they

want to know more but then want to get into the fact that I'm a forensic electrical engineer

...