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How State Fire Marshal's Office trains investigators in new tech
FOX 9's Rob Olson was in Nowthen on Thursday to see how the Minnesota State Fire Marshal is training investigators on a new piece of technology to track evidence in fires.
NOWTHEN, Minn. (FOX 9) - Just like anyone else, fire investigators need to go to school.
On Thursday, the classroom is a vacant house in rural Anoka County where, a couple of weeks ago, the Minnesota State Fire Marshal’s Office set six different fires, then put them out, now returning for their students to try to figure out what happened.
Their teacher is Levi Roline, the Deputy State Fire Marshal for Minnesota.
And this time, he’s got a brand-new piece of tech to add to the ever-evolving world of fire detective work.
"As far as fire investigation as a science, we’re one of the youngest forensic sciences that’s out there," Roline said.
Follow the cues
What we know:
A couple of times a year, the State Fire Marshal’s Office holds these training sessions in various parts of Minnesota.
It’s a two-week class attended by members of local fire departments and investigators from other agencies, "where they’ve learned how to process a fire scene," said Roline, "and determine the origin and the cause of a fire."
This group included a forensic scientist with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) whose day job is fire debris analysis in the state crime lab.
Sorting through the debris
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Helping to improve fire investigations in MN
State fire officials have a new tool to help with fire investigations in Minnesota. FOX 9's Rob Olson has more.
How it works:
This final exam, as it were, is to visit this home with the pre-staged fires and see if what they’ve learned in the classroom pays off in the field.
"So in this house, we have six different fire scenes, and there are six groups," explained Roline.
"Their assignment is this is your room, determine the origin and the cause of the fire in this particular room."
They present their findings and origin and cause on the final day of class.
The fires are a mix of accidental, carelessness and intentional, ranging from bad wiring to sloppy smokers to arsonists.
A state of the art new tool
High-tech help:
A few months ago, the State Fire Marshal’s Office added a powerful new tool to their arsenal of techniques.
It’s a $30,000 Lidar unit, about the size of a home coffee grinder, equipped with a laser scanner and four cameras.
Together, they create a virtual replica of fire scenes to investigators can return to the scene of the investigation long after the actual scene is gone.
"And I can basically fly you through the scene," said Roline. "That’s a lot more beneficial than saying here’s a still picture, this is what I’m trying to tell you."
The student firefighters don’t need to learn how to use it, since it’s owned and operated by the state, but they are learning how to use the 3-D imaging it can create for their investigations, if the State Fire Marshal gets called in.
Roline said the science of fire forensics has evolved a lot, hence the regular training becomes so important.
"To say that fire investigations has come a long way since 10, 15, 20 years ago," he says, "it’s leaps and bounds."