History Main / FieryCoverUp

* Common in ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' when the Men-In-Black are involved.

* In ''VideoGame/Persona4: [[UpdatedRerelease Golden]]'', [[spoiler:the "Accomplice" ending where you decided to befriend Adachi and coverup his crimes has you burned the incriminating warning letter that he sent you when you were investigating the killer. When Adachi sees you do it, he just laugh at you for betraying your pals for his friendship and essentially blackmails you since you destroyed the evidence to his crimes.]]

* The fire that destroyed Stella's apartment on ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' was thought to be this trope when a corpse was discovered in a neighboring apartment. Subverted when the "murder victim" was found to have died of an injured spleen from an unrelated accident two days earlier, making her presence at the time of the fire a coincidence.

* ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'' actually allows the player to do this by giving them the option to ''[[StuffBlowingUp rig their computer with explosives]]''. If the FBI is knocking on the Uplink Corporation's door and they're about to shut down your account and seize your computer, you can blow the whole thing up destroy all the incriminating evidence, and provided you squirreled away enough money you can just buy a new computer without [[FinalDeath losing your account and all of your progress.]]

* Averted in ''Flyaway'' by Desmond Bagley. Our hero is giving TheSummation to the BigBad, who at one point throws a piece of evidence in the fire. The hero points out that it's a photocopy. "Plenty more where that came from."
* Taken UpToEleven in ''The Golden Rendezvous'' by Creator/AlistairMacLean. The villains steal the latest mini-nuke from the United States and plan to use it to destroy all evidence and witnesses after their robbery of a gold shipment. The protagonist points out that using explosives isn't guaranteed to work, as people have survived the explosion of naval magazines packed with TNT during wartime. Likewise shooting everyone would take hours and waste valuable time. Of course, as the mini-nuke is the latest technology, [[CutLexLuthorACheck why didn't the criminals just sell it?]]

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Film - Animation]]
* In ''HeyArnoldTheMovie'', Scheck burned the document proving the neighbor as a historical landmark in front of Arnold and Harold so that his plan to demolish the neighbor would proceed. [[spoiler:This bites him in the ass when Arnold stole the surveillance footage of Scheck burning the document to not only prove the credential of the document but also expose Scheck's crime.]]
[[/folder]]

Compare DestroyTheEvidence which deals with characters covering up the crimes of others. Also compare GasLeakCoverup, KillItWithFire, and RevealingCoverup.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', the threatened nuclear strike against Shadow Moses Island is ostensibly a [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure last-ditch contingency to stop the terrorists]]. Later revelations make it clear, however, that it is just as much this trope as well.

%% Image moved from DestroyTheEvidence per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1584522034064165600
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/TheCityHunter https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/City_Hunter_Evidence_Disposal_6043.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Here's how to dispose most incriminating evidence: by burning.]]

* [[MegaCorp Aoyama Pharmaceutical]] in ''Anime/{{Mnemosyne}}'' demolishes Sayara Yamanobe's secret lab soon after it is compromised in the first episode.

* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Light has an elaborate setup to hide the Death Note. It's in a drawer, under a false bottom, with a circuit underneath the false bottom, around the Death Note. There is a rubber pad that keeps the circuit from being completed when the false bottom is down; the only way to take it out is to slide the ink barrel of a pen through a small hole on the underside of the drawer to block the circuit and push the false bottom up. If the circuit is completed, the Death Note will be ignited. This way, even if they suspect that he's Kira, even if they know about the Death Note, even if they realize that there's a false bottom on the drawer, the Death Note will be reduced to ash and they will have no proof.
** Later he uses fiery deaths to dispose of [[spoiler:Kiyomi Takada and Mello]].
* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', Dr. Marcoh directs the Elric brothers to Central City's library for a coded message he left there about what the homunculi are doing. Unfortunately, the homunculi hear of this, and when the brothers arrive at Central City, they find that the entire library has been burned down.
* In the second ''Manga/BlackJack'' OAV an international drug cartel burns down the peyote grow op they've been running in the mountains when the authorities catch wind of it. Their plans are undone, however, when they make the mistake of attempting to dispose of Black Jack himself in the fire, [[BondVillainStupidity alive, of course]].
* In ''Literature/MoribitoGuardianOfTheSpirit'', it is kind of an EstablishingCharacterMoment for Balsa, when she accepts the task of hiding the prince so his father will never find him. She grabs as much of the offered jewels as she can easily carry, takes the prince, and orders the servants to burn down the wing of the palace to both as a distraction while they get away and to [[NeverFoundTheBody cover up what happened to the prince]].
* In ''Manga/MotherKeeper'' in the final part of Hunter [[spoiler: Graham sets Silas' house on fire after murdering everyone in there]].

* ComicBook/LexLuthor does this to one of his own buildings at the beginning of ''Comicbook/BlackOrchid'', incidentally [[DecoyProtagonist burning up the title character]].

* In ''Fanfic/AeonEntelechyEvangelion'' the OIS forensic team tries to find any evidence on the group who compromised the airport security on the day Shinji arrived. Problem: They are doing in the aftermath of battle, where one side, the NEG Army, was desperate enough to lob relatively small tactical nuclear warheads at the other side, the Third Harbinger Asherah, who casually violates spacetime and reality while pwning the humans with ease. Suffice to say, there is not much to dig.

* ''Film/BigFatLiar'': Movie producer Marty Wolf (accidentally) steals teen Jason's writing assignment, then makes a blockbuster movie out of it. Jason asks Marty to call his dad to tell him what happened, but instead he [[KickTheDog burns it in front of him]] while making a big show of "trying" to put it out.

* In the famous scene of ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare2'' [[spoiler:Shepherd]] orders his men to do this with [[spoiler:the body of Ghost and Roach (the Task Force 141 PlayerCharacter), who is still somewhat conscious enough to see Shepherd throw his burning cigar into the gasoline-soaked ditch. The last thing Roach sees is Shepard walking away while he burns to death.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', [[spoiler: "The Milkman" whom Thornley Towers security guard Boyd Cooper keeps worrying about is actually an alternate persona planted in his mind by Coach Oleander, with orders to burn down the asylum once Oleander and Loboto are done with their evil scheme.]]

* In ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns'', it's revealed that the fire that killed Alice's family [[spoiler:was started by Alice's psychiatrist, Dr. Bumby, in order to conceal his rape and murder of Alice's older sister Lizzy.]]
* In ''VideoGame/BrokenHelix'', [[spoiler:the marines' true objective is to [[KillEmAll kill every living thing in Area 51]], be they human or alien, including Burton, [[HeKnowsTooMuch who knows too much]]]].

* In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' the killer behind the game's first murder attempts to destroy evidence in the trash incinerator despite the room it's in being barred off during the time period the murder took place. [[spoiler: Fortunately for him, he's the Ultimate Baseball Star and could hurl the evidence across the room and right into the incinerator ''and'' hit the button to turn it on. Unfortunately for him, he didn't manage to burn the whole thing and left just enough for everyone to figure out what he was doing.]]
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', the prologue mission ends with the BigBad, [[RenegadeRussian Colonel Volgin]], stealing a DoomsdayDevice from a Soviet research base, then destroying the base with an American nuclear warhead. In an interesting take on the trope, this turns out to be less for covering up his involvement and more for framing the United States -- by making it seem like the U.S. is supporting his military coup, the Soviet government becomes less likely to believe America when they offer to help.
* In ''VideoGame/Persona2 Eternal Punishment'', Tatsuya Sudou's murders of the Mafia hitmen [[AssassinOutclassin who were sent to kill him]], the deaths of the staff members, and his RoomFullOfCrazy were all destroyed by burning down the Sanitarium where it all took place. Then TheConspiracy used a GasLeakCoverup to cover the causes.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Lois Comes Out of Her Shell", as part of a night on the town spurred by Lois having a HollywoodMidLifeCrisis, she and Peter accidentally drive into and kill a homeless man. Peter, visibly upset, covers both their car and the man's corpse in gas and sets them on fire.

* [[MegaCorp Aoyama Pharmaceutical]] in ''{{Anime/Mnemosyne}}'' demolishes Sayara Yamanobe's secret lab soon after it is compromised in the first episode.

* In ''Anime/MoribitoGuardianOfTheSpirit'', it is kind of an EstablishingCharacterMoment for Balsa, when she accepts the task of hiding the prince so his father will never find him. She grabs as much of the offered jewels as she can easily carry, takes the prince, and orders the servants to burn down the wing of the palace to both as a distraction while they get away and to [[NeverFoundTheBody cover up what happened to the prince]].

* In ''FanFic/AeonEntelechyEvangelion'' the OIS forensic team tries to find any evidence on the group who compromised the airport security on the day Shinji arrived. Problem: They are doing in the aftermath of battle, where one side, the NEG Army, was desperate enough to lob relatively small tactical nuclear warheads at the other side, the Third Harbinger Asherah, who casually violates spacetime and reality while pwning the humans with ease. Suffice to say, there is not much to dig.
* In ''FanFic/NewWorldWithoutEnd'' Light and Mikami torch [[spoiler: the Yellowbox warehouse.]]

** In the season 4 finale, [[spoiler:after killing Gus Fring]], Walt goes to the superlab where Jesse is forced to cook under supervision, kills his two guards, before they both proceed to destroy the place by flooding it with volatile chemicals and setting up a Christmas light timer connected to a frayed wire, whose spark causes a conflagration that torches down the whole basement (when the DEA visits it in the next episode, they can only find two charred bodies left unidentifiable by the heat and the destroyed remains of a surveillance camera on the wall).

* Taken UpToEleven in ''The Golden Rendezvous'' by Creator/AlistairMacLean. The villains steal the latest mini-nuke from the United States and plan to use it to destroy all evidence and witnesses after their robbery of a gold shipment. The protagonist points out that using explosives isn't guaranteed to work, as people have survived the explosion of naval magazines packed with TNT during wartime. Likewise shooting everyone would take hours and waste valuable time. Of course, as the mini-nuke is the latest technology, [[FridgeLogic why didn't the criminals just sell it?]]

* In ''Film/SonOfAGun'', Lynch and JR pile everything connected to the robbery [[spoiler (including Sterlo's body)]] into the getaway vehicle before torching it and shoving into a lake in one of the old mine pits

* The fire that destroyed Stella's apartment on ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' was thought to be this trope when a corpse was discovered in a neighboring apartment. Subverted when the "murder victim" was found to have died of an injured spleen from an unrelated accident two days earlier, making his presence at the time of the fire a coincidence.