Fire Investigation Unit

Fire Investigation Unit

An important function of the Fire Prevention Bureau is the Fire Investigations Unit (FIU) under the direct supervision of a battalion chief. The FIU is staffed with five on-call fire investigators who, when not conducting fire investigations, are assigned to their respective primary supervisory and inspection functions within the Fire Prevention Bureau. All fire investigators are National Association of Fire Investigators Certified Fire and Explosion Investigators (CFEI) and meet the requirements as declared under the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard number 1033, "Professional Qualifications for Fire Investigator."

Fire investigators are staffed on a one-week, 24-hour on-call rotation, beginning Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. and finishing the following Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. If the on-call fire investigator is busy at an active investigation scene and a need for another fire investigation is determined by the operations commander, the previous fire investigator is called to respond to that incident. Each of the five fire investigators is assigned a fire investigation response van and all are uniformly equipped to adequately and independently conduct an origin and cause investigation.

The FIU responds to fire and/or hazardous incidents within the City at the request of the on-scene Operations Division incident commander (IC) when the cause cannot be readily determined and a need for a detailed, comprehensive examination of the scene by a fire investigator is warranted. Please note that FIU staff does not respond to private requests from citizens to conduct independent fire investigations, nor do they investigate the cause of a fire without an operations battalion chief, engine company or ladder company present on the scene.

Fire investigators shall respond to incidents involving:

• Fires believed to be intentionally set
• Fires involving juveniles (includes gang activity)
• Fires of greater alarms
• Fires involving a fatality or injury to civilians and/or firefighters
• Fires involving high dollar loss
• Acts of terrorism (i.e. fire bombing, other related types of bombings, structural sabotage, etc.)
• Hazardous condition of an occupancy representing an immediate threat to life safety of their resident(s) or surrounding community (i.e. assembly overcrowding, blocked exits, building collapse, compromised fire protection and detection systems, etc.)
• Other related hazards and/or fires requested by the on-scene incident commander

The primary responsibilities of the fire investigator are to determine the origin and cause of a fire scene. Fire investigators use the standard guide as set forth in NFPA 921 and determine a fire cause in one of four categories:

1. Incendiary - Fires that are intentionally and maliciously set
2. Accidental - Fires caused by non-malicious electrical, mechanical, chemical, nuclear and/or careless means
3. Undetermined - Fires that may have more than one possible ignition source and therefore cannot prove one definitive source of a single ignition point
4. Natural - Fires ignited by acts of nature, such as lightning

When fires are determined "incendiary" and "undetermined," and criminal maliciousness is determined, the FIU fire investigator will request an arson detective from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department to assist in the investigation process. An investigation team concept is developed whereby the investigative process becomes an origin-and-cause and a criminal investigation. FIU investigators enjoy a solid working relationship with Fort Lauderdale Police arson detectives, who maintain open communication and share information to close an investigation in a timely manner.

Other agencies the FIU has a close relationship with are the state fire marshal, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (FBATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Treasury, other local fire service agencies, the Insurance Special Investigations Unit and the American Red Cross. These agencies may be called upon for issues involving large scale fire investigations, where the assistance from these resources proves invaluable in providing an array of investigative and human resource needs.