Local Fire Investigation Training

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 Some local agencies are taking steps to make sure they’re ready to investigate the cause and origin of fires in our area.
 
Emergency responders trained with an experienced fire investigator who works for EFI Global, a company that investigates fires throughout the nation.
 
This training will help EFI Global and local departments be better prepared when dealing with fire investigations.

Several departments participated in the exercises and they say it’s an invaluable tool.
 
Ken Zetocha is a 29 year–veteran with the West Fargo Fire Department.

He’s one of several people training with experienced fire investigator Lorne Brunner.

They are looking at the aftermath of these fiery scenes.
The goal is to determine what happened.
 
“We were in class setting dealing with learning the process of when we as firefighters go in of how to preserve the fire scene and yet still being able to extinguish the fire,” said Zetocha.
 
It’s a class that helps teach local departments like the West Fargo Fire Department fire origin and cause.

They will now be more aware of what to look for when investigating local fires.
 
“You’re going to be able to say I found it here because this is a photograph of it, I labeled it and this is the position in inches or millimeters that I found this evidence,” said Brunner.
 
The fires at this house were burned days before so the class could test their skills.
 
Fire investigators say investigations are pretty thorough and one of the things to keep in mind which can be hard is preserving evidence.
 
“Sometimes it’s difficult because if it’s a heavy fire extension, the room is fully engulfed or the house is or the apartment building whatever the structure might be, it’s really hard,” said Zetocha.
 
Investigators say it’s a process that requires precision.
 
“We call that the grid system so that way once you remove an item you can replace it at another time by rebuilding or reconstructing the room of origin,” said Brunner.
 
The training tested firefighters like William Nelson with the Fargo Fire Department who’s training to be a fire investigator.
 
“It’s very fortunate that we had this opportunity to go have eight different scenarios of real life fire, hands on training without anyone getting harmed or injured or losing any property,” said Nelson.
 
With training like this, sights like this can be prevented.
 
“It helps us to be able to get to the origin and/or cause of the fire so we can prevent them more in the future,” said Nelson.