Fire pattern recognition and identification is a fundamental part of fire investigations. In order to avoid unintentional bias, the interpretation of fire patterns should be validated, and their limitations known. This study introduces a fire pattern that has been observed at real-world fire scenes, but not yet documented in fire investigation treatises. The fire pattern had been observed on objects that protrude into the upper layer of a compartment fire. This mixed-methods study consisted of physical experiments, computational fluid dynamics models, and statistical analysis, which were designed to replicate these types of patterns, identify its characteristics, validate its interpretation, and acknowledge its limitations. These directional fire patterns, described as “turbulent flow patterns,” were found to be good indicators of the direction that the products of combustion came from, provided that they are not in an area that an eddy is be expected to form. The study also verifies the presence of convection currents in the upper layer of a compartment fire that are independent of the dominant flow path. The information presented in this study is relevant to fire/arson investigators who use fire patterns to determine the area of origin of a fire. The conclusion section of this study provides recommended practices for fire investigators to identify, assess, document, and interpret turbulent flow patterns.