Fire Investigation Courses

Fire Safety Consultancy

LINKS

Customers

Salvation Army

First Responder Medical

The aim of these courses:

Areas covered (S) Standard Course (A) Advanced Course:

Arson methods (S&A)

Causes of fires in road vehicles (S)

Low voltage electricity (S)

Flash points and auto ignition temperatures of various products used in motor vehicles (S)

Static electricity (S&A)

Impact (S&A)

Fire Development (A)

Setting a deliberate fire (A) inter group

Predicting fire development (A)

Investigations and group work (A)

Evidence available and preservation (A)

DNA opportunities (A)

Fire pattern analysis (A)

Post fire scene examination (A)

Vehicle Fire Investigation – A systematic approach (S&A)

Recording the fire scene (A)

The practical approach to investigation

Determining the fire temperature. (S&A)

What should be considered in ascertaining the cause of fire. (S&A)

The Role of the Fire Service.(S)

Risk Assessments for the Investigator (S)

Looking for evidence (A)

Recording the evidence (A)

Recording the fire scene (A)

The process:

·    Interactive group discussion on vehicle fires and their possible causes including case studies of previous incidents that have occurred.

followed by:

• Practical fire scenarios on fire spread (S&A)

• The chemistry of fire and flash points covering – petrol, diesel, brake fluid, liquefied petroleum gas, etc. (S)

• Extinguishing methods. (S&A)

• Group discussions on fire development, methods of deliberate fire setting (A)

• Setting a deliberate fire for the other group to investigate (A)

• Presentation including evidence gathered to course (A)

• Fire investigation on vehicles that have been involved in fire both accidental and deliberate.

• Reviews and presentations by groups. (S&A)

Surrey Police and Toyota Europe in BA.

Costs:

Standard Course £375 per person (unchanged for 2010/11) – maximum of 12 delegates per course

(£75 discount for Forensic Science Society, IFE, IRTE/SOE and IAATI members)

 7 hours CPD for IFE

Course Directors - Richard Baker and Chris Lowe

Advanced course £800 per person - maximum 10 delegates per course

(£100 discount for IFE members)

Course Directors Chris Lowe and Richard Baker

13hours CPD for IFE

Next courses:

VFI 1^st September

AVFI 2^nd 3^rd  September

VFI 19^th October

AVFI 20^th 21^st October

Dates 2011:

VFI – 12th April

AVFI – 13th 14th April

VFI – 16th May

AVFI – 17th 18th May

VFI – 14th June

AVFI – 15th 16th June

VFI – 12th July

AVFI – 13th 14th July

VFI – 13th September

AVFI – 14th 15th September

VFI – 11th October

AVFI – 12th 13th October

 

To include:

All instruction and handouts

Lunch

Venue

VAT at the standard rate is not included.

 

 

Chris Lowe

Chris retired from Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service in June 2009 where he served for nearly 31 years. He became a specialist Fire Investigation Officer for the service in 2002 and in 2004 became the Fire Investigation Manager.

While carrying out investigations himself he developed the team from two to ten investigators and established a high level of training for them all. Chris has attended Gardiner’s theory, practical and development courses and has achieved an Advanced Professional Certificate in Investigative Practice to support the Fire Investigation process.

As part of his role as FI Manager he has for many years been part of the East Midlands Regional Fire Investigation Liaison Group where he contributed to regional policies and procedures in relation to Fire Investigation.

In addition to FI, Chris was responsible for establishing an Arson Task Force in Northamptonshire which he did in 2004 and these two roles offered him the opportunity to ensure closer working with the Police and Forensic Investigation teams. This partnership has evolved into a multi agency team and the close liaison and joint training have developed the skills and effectiveness of all those involved. In the last two years he has worked closely with Northamptonshire Police to develop the identification and affective recovery of forensic evidence from post fire vehicles.

Chris is a Graduate of the Institution of Fire Engineers and has presented at National conferences on the management of fire investigations, attended the IAAI Training conference in Denver 2008 and is now the East Midlands regional representative for the UK Chapter of the IAAI (International Association of Arson Investigators). Following his retirement from the Fire Service Chris has moved into the private sector to continue and further develop in the field of Fire Investigation.

Richard Baker, is Chief Fire Officer for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after setting up from scratch a fully functional fire, rescue and ambulance service based on UK standards.  This now covers Kenya as well and includes air ambulance response covering some 588,000 square miles.  Richard was co-author of The Energy Institute’s code of practice on the product and vehicle recovery of low flash products transported by road tanker and was founder of the national Vehicle Fire Investigation course which has IFE CPD.  He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers, Associate Member of the Society of Operational Engineers and an Honorary Member of the Institute of Vehicle Recovery.  He is also author of the Police Blue Book on dealing with HAZMAT incidents, author of the risk management distant learning BSc programme for the University of Hong Kong, author of the Police and Forensic Science Fire Investigation handbook and Exercise Director for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Counter Terrorism Exercises in Central and East Africa.