Embark on a journey with fire investigation luminary Ricardo Torres as he recounts the transformative path from volunteer firefighter to acclaimed expert in the fiery realm of Latin American Fire Investigation as chief fire investigator with FIG Global
Our conversation ignites with Ricardo's personal narrative, entwined with passion and dedication to unraveling the cryptic stories left behind in the wake of devastating blazes.
He illuminates the challenges and triumphs involved in expanding the reach of the International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI) and fostering vital international collaboration to elevate fire investigation to an art form that not only solves mysteries but saves lives.
As we wade through the complexities of fire investigation, the discussion sparkles with insights on the necessity for educational and certification standards, particularly in regions where formal qualifications remain elusive.
Ricardo and I share experiences from the front lines, examining the role of cutting-edge tools like drones and 3D scanning in transforming our pursuit of the truth. For those drawn to the call of this demanding and rewarding career, we unravel the tapestry of skills, from practical field experience to the innate qualities that forge an exceptional fire investigator, while also contemplating the evolution of the profession through the lens of seasoned experts like Dr. Manse.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and, episode after episode,
we'll attempt to excavate theoften difficult but always
fascinating world of the fireinvestigator.
Welcome to CSI on Fire, yourfire investigation podcast.
(00:27):
I'm Mike Molden, your host, andtoday, I think, is the 14th
episode.
We've got a fantastic guest ontoday I've got Ricardo Torres.
Welcome to the podcast andplease, as I like to do,
introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thanks, mike, I appreciate the invitation and
again, it's an honor to be onhere with you.
I've heard some of your otherguests and you truly have a
great thing going now with thispodcast and congratulations to
you for making it so interestingand getting a wide array of
subjects being talked about.
Sure, I'll tell you a littlebit about myself.
(01:01):
I started off as a volunteerfirefighter in 1986 in the city
of Pharr, texas.
I was just 18.
What got me interested in thefire service was auto mechanics.
Teacher was a volunteerfirefighter in Edinburgh, texas.
He had his personal vehicle inthe shop all the time and he had
(01:22):
a radio, one of these Plectronradios where you can listen to
all the radio traffic from thelocal fire departments.
It was really exciting for meas a kid to listen to all these
calls for house fires, grassfires, vehicle accidents, and
that woke up an interest in me.
(01:43):
And as soon as I turned 18, Ijoined the volunteer fire
department in FAR.
The rest is history.
I joined the pay department inOctober of 87.
After I was offered a job.
I was going through technicalschool for automotive mechanics
at that time when the job offercame in and at that point I was
hooked.
(02:04):
I started my career as afirefighter and through the
years what happened or whatmoved me into fire
investigations really was atragedy that occurred in our
family.
One of my cousins lost twochildren in a house fire in San
Juan, texas, and it wasdisheartening for me to hear
(02:25):
from my family where everybodywas looking to me for answers.
And up to that point I was agung-ho firefighter.
I loved fire.
What I did doing rescues andall that investigations was
really not in my radar,especially because at that time
(02:45):
the local fire marshal there wasa lot of people that talked
about how the fires were alwaysundetermined.
And after this fire occurredbecause the local city where it
happened they didn't have a firemarshal, so they asked him to
do the investigation and hisinvestigation resulted in
findings of the children wereplaying with matches.
(03:07):
They brought in anotherinvestigator on the private side
and I'm not privy to what hesaid, but it was related to an
electrical malfunction.
We had two different versions ofwhat had happened and at that
point I was like of what hadhappened and at that point I was
like how can we have such a bigdifference?
(03:27):
It was at that point that Idecided you know what I'm going
to learn how to investigatefires and I'm going to be able
to give people the right answer,or at least the best possible
answer, so that they can feelcomfortable or at least know
what happened, whether it's aloss of life or a loss of a
(03:47):
business.
Right now, most of the fires weinvestigate in Mexico and Latin
America are huge commercialindustrial processing plants or
manufacturing plants, andhundreds of families are left
without jobs, and it's alsoimportant for them to understand
you know what happens in fires,because the sole purpose, aside
(04:10):
from finding out what happened,is to prevent them from
happening again.
So, in a nutshell, that was apretty big nutshell, but that's
how I got to where we're atright now, mike.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Great and you've already mentioned it there, but
you're a pioneer in the sense ofyou're the first Latin American
fire investigator we've had on,so we want to talk a bit more
about that.
I know that you're a certifiedinstructor for the IWI and I
know that you've had a certainremit to be given in South
America.
So if you just want to brief usand talk us a little bit about
that, Sure, the IWI.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I hold it very dear to my heart.
When I was first asked to join,I was still in the fire service
and I didn't know what it wasabout, so I started to do some
research.
The folks that invited me KenFinley from the Texas chapter
and former president, pastpresident of the IAAI asked me
(05:02):
hey, I want you to meet Tom Feefrom California.
He's a great guy.
Tom Fee was also past presidentof the association and we sat
down at one of the conferencesand talked about expanding the
global footprint of the IAAIinto Latin America.
There was already chapters offcontinent, as we like to say.
(05:22):
Right, our focus was into LatinAmerica, and so we started off
with Chapter 70, which was alocal chapter in Northwest
Mexico, and Joe Rosas, whopassed away a couple of years
ago.
He was the president, but thatstarted off.
What I think really started togarner interest in other
(05:45):
countries.
And I remember in 2012, Ibelieve, we were in Jacksonville
, florida, and we had four fireinvestigators or firefighters
from Brazil go to that IWAITC,as well as other from Panama,
and it was the first time that Ihad talked to another one from
Colombia.
(06:06):
So there was a small group ofinvestigators from other
countries that had come in tothe IAAI.
They had heard about the IAAIand that really was kind of like
the springboard to forming thefirst international chapter of
multi-countries, which wasChapter 79.
I believe that was in 2014.
(06:26):
We had our first meeting in LasVegas.
We elected our first presidentfrom Colombia, germán, and after
that we started really pushing.
We had our first conference forChapter 79 in Panama and then,
after Panama, we went to Mexicoand then from Mexico we went to
Colombia and then, after Panama,we went to Mexico and then from
Mexico we went to Colombia andthen, after Colombia, we went to
(06:48):
Chile and after that is whenthe pandemic hit.
So we didn't have for a coupleof years, but it was really a
great new thing that attractedso many more fire investigators
and now we've got a really goodgroup, a lot of fire
investigators from all overSouth America.
(07:09):
We've got CFIs now fireinvestigators who have obtained
their certified fireinvestigator certification I
can't even remember the numberof fire investigator technicians
that also now are certified andevidence collection technicians
, and we're trying, we'repushing to make all these.
One of the things that Iremember when I first started
(07:31):
interacting with a lot of thepeople in Latin America was
their perception that thesecertifications were not
available to them, and I wasreally like, wait a minute, what
do you mean?
It's not available?
Well, it was not available intheir minds because everything
was in English.
Those who did not speak orunderstand English, that was a
(07:52):
big wall for them.
Yeah, sure that prevented themfrom being able to do what they
wanted to do, which was getthese certifications.
So the IAAI has been very goodin making on CFI Trainer.
There's a few of those modulesthat are now translated into
Spanish.
They have the subtitles inSpanish, which is great, which
(08:15):
is probably one of the bestthings to have happened, because
that's also given them theviewpoint that the IAAI is
interested in bringing themalong and making these
certifications available.
I think everybody's excited,everybody's been happy with the
results from that initiative.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I think it's fantastic.
I mean, saudi Arabia is Arabicand desperately trying to learn
some Arabic, because language isoften some stuff.
That's not just a languagebarrier, it's a relationship
barrier sometimes.
I remember I lived in BocaRaton in Florida for about nine
months.
Spanish was so common in thelower part of certainly in
Florida again, just trying topick up some.
(08:56):
I've noticed it here.
If you can just even make theeffort to try and show that you
are obviously a native Englishspeaker and the Brits are
terrible at learning otherlanguages, that's a fact.
It's as simple as that.
I think trying to learn itobviously builds bridges and
helps out communication.
I think I think it's fantasticthat the IWI are looking at
(09:16):
Spanish and I think they shouldbe looking at other languages as
well to bring in.
They are InternationalAssociation of Arts and so it
should be international language.
Really Fantastic.
I mean, let's take you on.
You've covered your sort ofyour fire service, your public
sort of service.
I know that you're obviously achief fire investigator for FIG.
Now Do you just want to tell uswhat FIG is and take us into
your sort of public sector?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Sure.
So FIG, forensic InvestigationsGroup Global, which I am the
chief fire investigator for.
We're a sister company of FIG,which is Forensic Investigations
Group in the US.
Rick Jones is the chief fireinvestigator for FIG.
So Rick Jones and I we've beenlongtime friends and we talked
(09:57):
about doing this, having acompany, an expansion into
Mexico and Latin America.
I had already worked with acouple of other outfits from the
US and quickly learned thatthere was limitations to trying
to run a forensic consultingfirm in Mexico with people that
(10:18):
are not from Mexico, like youjust mentioned, that are not
from Mexico, like you justmentioned.
The biggest challenge waslanguage.
Communication, which is key inany business, is especially,
(10:39):
even more profound when you'retalking about findings of
forensic nature, because youagree with me that there's
different languages, even withinthe community of fire
investigators, when you'retalking about engineers, when
you're talking aboutinvestigators who come from the
fire service background,investigators who come from the
(10:59):
police background, and even now,what I see and one of the new
element that's coming in now, isthe students that are coming
out of the universities with thedegrees in fire investigation,
which I think is great, the bestthing that could happen to our
profession.
Give you an example In Mexico,there is no fire investigation
(11:24):
degree or certification oranything that you can say.
Oh well, if you want to be afire investigator, you need to
meet these requirements, and wefound out that that happens as
well in other countries.
One of the things that I thinkit's coming upon us is to try to
educate people, not only thepublic, but also the people that
(11:48):
we work with.
In my case, we work with a lotof insurance companies,
adjusters, brokers.
When you make it a key point ofyour operation to put forth
some education or programs tohelp them understand what we do,
(12:08):
it's imperative.
In our company, we have FigGlobal Fire Academy, which was
designed to begin with toeducate those insurance
professionals, and we've hadright after the pandemic or
right when the pandemic started.
That's when we started.
Actually, it was one of thescariest things.
We started this company in 2019and the pandemic hits in March
(12:32):
of 2020.
And it was like we were ninemonths in and I thought, well,
there we go, we're done, butfortunately for us, we were able
to survive during these firstfew years.
We're going on five years.
Now.
In July, we'll have five yearsoperating in Mexico.
We're excited because, like I'mtelling you.
(12:55):
One of the things that wewanted to do was be able to help
the clients in Mexicounderstand.
Well, look, I'll give youanother example of why it's
important.
Every fire in Mexico, when Ifirst started working in Mexico,
was classified as the causebeing a short circuit.
A short circuit caused a fireEvery fire.
(13:17):
It's that complex.
Yeah, I think somebody had likea template for a short circuit
fire and they would just stampit and send it on in.
It was like, well, no, I mean,even the laws of statistics tell
you that that can't be true,that 100% of the fires cannot be
caused by short circuits.
It was important for us to beable to show them that well, you
(13:40):
have to investigate fires froma forensic perspective, don't
just go in.
I remember some of the fireswhen I first started working and
there was all these excavatormachines and stuff going on and
they were just ripping stuff outand it was like wait a minute,
nobody's documented any of theelectrical, any of the
(14:02):
appliances or machinery that wasinstalled in that area.
How can we just start pullingstuff out and then later on, oh,
wait a minute, maybe weshouldn't have done that because
that was important for thisfire.
So those are the things thatwe've done, and I'll tell you
something else.
I mean, I'm just totally amazedwith all the technology that's
(14:22):
come around in the past coupleof years.
We've got drones, we've got 3Dscanners, we've got on our staff
a couple of engineers who arejust amazing in being able to
see what's coming in the nextfour years five years, because
(14:55):
things are happening so rapidlynow.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Sure, yeah, I mean particularly AI now artificial
intelligence, and how that'sgoing to impact on things like
fluid mechanics and modeling andstuff like that.
Things that would take would bevery blocky and I don't get
involved in that.
I always think that stepoutside your area of expertise
really, and if you've got amodel or something, let someone
who's used to modeling to do it,cause they'll do it downside
(15:18):
quick and down type of effort.
But I think AI is going to playa role.
But certainly from myexperience you almost
disappointed now if you haven'tgot some sort of drone footage,
because either the police in theUK anyway here as well, you
know it's fairly quickly thatsomeone will put a drone up very
early on and that footage canbe absolutely invaluable of
where the area of the origin,especially when it's burned for
(15:40):
12 hours, and you haven't got alot left.
And I think it's fantastic aswell in Latin America that you
are.
I read a statistic somewhereabout the number of fire
investigators, forensicengineers that are going to be
required, and a lot of the oldschool are kind of simply
through retirement or throughold age.
It's sort of you know, movingon and out, and I think there's
a massive kind of gap comingthrough for those who really I'm
(16:03):
hoping that podcasts like thischatting to you and to the guys
and girls in Latin America thatthey realize that it's a career
path and it's a fascinatingcareer path, a really
interesting career path.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Right, and I think you find out pretty quickly if
you're going to love doing thisor if you're going to hate it.
There's a lot of dirty work.
That's what I tell theengineers when I'm interviewing
them to bring them on.
One of the first things I tellthem is because a lot of
engineers are like hey, I canwork in an office, I can work in
a lab, but getting them out tothe fire scenes doing the
(16:36):
excavation, all the process ofbeing able to the documentation,
is real easy for them becausethey understand.
Okay, yeah, we've got to makesure that we know how this
installation was done.
But when it starts to movingstuff out, that's where we get
into a little bit of a situationwhere some of them are like,
hey, wait a minute, I'm not cutout for this work, I'm not cut
(16:56):
out for this.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, when it's pouring down with rain, when
you've been there for 12 hours,you're in fire.
Debris mush.
It really does start toidentify those who are probably
cut out for it and those who arenot.
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, shifting through debris and picking out
stuff from the debris is prettywork.
We're fortunate enough we havein our company we've got a group
of technicians that arespecialized for that.
They've got all the experiencefor cutting, welding torches,
everything.
When we get a fire, I can bringin our own people to do the
(17:29):
excavation, and that reallyhelps out so that we don't lose
evidence One of the largestlosses we worked here in Mexico.
When we got there, the localauthorities didn't allow us to
do any of the excavation work.
They said no, we're going totake care of it.
They hired a company to do itand with all the cameras inside
of this processing plant, weknew exactly where the fire had
(17:51):
started.
So we were like we just need toget to that point.
Once we get to that point, wecan start looking for any
evidence.
Well, they ripped everythingout and pretty much left a clean
spot, and we were like this isnot what you're supposed to do
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I've had a very similar experience in that we
were interested in a particularvehicle within a large
industrial fire.
It was unsafe to get into.
So you turn up day one, you doyour outside and you do as much
as you can.
You have a little sneak in atsome points if it's healthy,
safety wise, and then it's downto a contractor to demolition
and you try and talk themthrough but you can't be there
(18:29):
on the loss adjusters.
The insurance company won'tallow you to be there to sort of
have that constant oversight,and we highlighted this area
that we were, similar to you,very interested in.
The next time we came back theplace was just gone, just
flattened 100%, and any kind ofreclaim or a recovery just went
out the window.
That's fantastic.
(18:49):
They called the excavationevidence team.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, it's the forensic excavation evidence
recovery team.
Good.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Okay, cool.
I think that's brilliant in thesense of I've done a few jobs
because I'm from a forensicbackground.
I've done a few jobs around,not necessarily fire related,
but because I was a plumbing andheating engineer when I first
left school.
We've had some murders of bitsand pieces where the pipes need
to be taken out, but they needto be taken out in a forensic
kind of way, and getting anormal plumber in who's not
forensically aware and not a CSImight not do that in the right
(19:19):
way Clean blades, especially ina specific tool, and making sure
that you don't lose things inthe pipes as they're.
And, without being too graphic,you might want some of those
things that are in the pipes.
So, yeah, I think that's afantastic kind of asset really.
I know that you were recentlyon a marine and fire
investigation course, and that'ssomething I'm quite interested
in as well.
I think that was this month,was it?
Or the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That was in February, yes, february.
Yeah, it was in West VirginiaAgain, one of those things where
I had heard of theInternational Association of
Marine Investigators.
A few years ago, because of ourwork schedule, I wasn't able to
attend any of the conferences,but these last few years we've
been getting a lot more work inthe marine industry.
(20:02):
So I decided you know what I'mgoing to go and see how good of
a conference this is and howgood of a training it is.
I've got to tell you I wascompletely satisfied with the
level of instruction, theinformation that's being put out
there.
I mean it's a class act, verygreat organization.
(20:22):
I mean they take pride and theydo a lot of training for the
membership.
I think it's about to take offas well.
I told them if you want toexpand into Latin America, we
can get some of the key peopleso that you can do that as well.
And again, I don't want to belike a jack of all trades,
(20:43):
especially at my age.
I've got seven engineers now,young guys in their 30s.
I'd rather send them, let themget certified.
It's a lot better as well,because they also see that as an
investment in theirprofessional growth and
development and it's also a wayfor them to specialize in
(21:04):
certain things Because, again,everybody comes from different
backgrounds and there may besome interest, like I've got one
engineer who's very good atdoing the 3D imaging and
software.
You want to give them the toolsand the training so they can
get better and expand on that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I think it's really important that you identify
employees or colleagues who arereally interested in this.
There's no point in puttingsomeone on a marine fire
investigation course if theyhaven't really got an interest
in marine.
I think it's really importantto sort of identify and let
people go the route that theywant to go.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
I think they have a massiveamount.
I only found out about theminternational social marine
(21:44):
investigator.
I only found out that probablya couple of years ago.
They're not really big on themarketing side of things.
I mean, mean, I'm not gettingsponsored by them today or
anything like that, but fromwhat I saw on your LinkedIn
profile and a few other peoplewere about these courses, how
many boats did they burn?
They burned quite a lot ofboats on the course.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
In the conference that I went to, they didn't burn
any boats, but the week beforethe IAAI had a Marine class and
I believe they burned six boatson that one Six boats.
The issue now is like okay,what are you looking for?
A practical work or thecertifications, which I don't
believe the IWAI has acertification right now for
(22:23):
Marine fire.
I believe that they're lookingat doing something like what
they did with the vehicle fireendorsement.
Eventually, I'm sure thatthey'll do something, or I think
it's already in the works wherethey're doing something like
that.
But the only other way for youto show that you have the
training is they have a fireinvestigator and an investigator
(22:43):
certification.
Gotcha yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Fantastic, okay, good .
So that's the top course tolook at and, as I say, we're not
in any commission, but I justnoticed that and I thought that
looked like a good course and Ithought we'd have a quick chat
about it.
Today I see that you run aneducation program.
You run a series of webinars aswell.
Are they English or in Spanish?
Are you mixing the two, or isit predominantly for Latin
America?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
It's predominantly for Latin America.
Like I had mentioned earlier,we started off so we could
educate the client base inMexico and Latin America and
we've had response from peopleall the way from Brazil
attending the webinars.
Fatima Zuniga, who runs thatprogram, has been excellent in
promoting it.
You talk about putting it outon social media and advertising
(23:32):
and stuff like that.
She's been one of those keyfigures in our company where
she's always active and pushingour name brand out there, and
the webinar is just one of thosethings that she's been very
instrumental in putting outthere and we've had a really
good response, and so it startedoff mainly for insurance
professionals, but it'stransitioning now to also doing
(23:56):
training with fire investigators.
Last year we did our firstvehicle fire course where we did
I believe it was a total of 28hours where we did theory
instruction and then we actuallydid practical.
We burned a couple of cars in atraining field and we had
people from Colombia, ecuador,mexico show up to that class and
(24:21):
it was a fantastic class, evenfor me.
I hadn't burned a car and Idon't know.
I can't remember when was thelast time I burned a car, but
when I was burning these cars Iwas like, wow, look at this,
there's so many things that weassume that happened.
If I hadn't recorded some ofthese things, I would have been
thinking something that reallywasn't true.
(24:42):
It would have been myinterpretation of what I was
seeing.
I just did a class in SouthTexas Fire Investigative
Association where I was one ofthe founding fathers for that
organization as well.
Okay, I was invited to teachthis class where we did the
burning mystery, because we'vehad quite a few fires in South
Texas in the past year where thecause of the fire was not
(25:06):
determined, so we revisited.
One of the things that I reallytook heart was when, speaking to
Dr Manci I believe you also hadhim on your yes, this week
actually.
Yeah, and he's a great friendof mine.
I love Dr Manci, he's one ofthe best in the business, and we
got to talking about this, thebook on the London fire and some
(25:27):
of the things that they did,and I told him while I was in
the class, we connected on Zoomwith him and he was able to talk
to the group and tell him hey,it's an endeavor that is.
It's not easy.
You got to put some time intowhat you're doing, especially
when you're trying to go off ofinformation that probably has
(25:49):
been lost.
And one of the things that Iwas telling him is if they're
able to go off of informationthat probably has been lost, and
one of the things that I wastelling them is if they're able
to go back and look at this firethat occurred back then.
Certainly these fires areoccurring right now and you all
have full access to everything.
There should be no reason whywe can't at least identify the
area of origin Maybe not aspecific point of origin, but an
(26:11):
area of origin.
And at the end of the day, it'slike I told them and I don't
know if you agree with this,mike, but I tell everybody this
now at the end of the day, it isan opinion that you are giving,
based on what facts you knowabout the case or about the fire
witness statements, firepatterns, fire dynamics, all
(26:34):
these things that come into playfor you to form an opinion
about what caused the fire,where it originated and caused
the fire.
So I tell everybody it's anopinion, it's not facts.
Everybody can give an opinion,but whose opinion is more
believable?
The guy who's on the site fortwo hours and says, yeah, it's
(26:55):
undetermined?
Or somebody who spends sometime there and understands the
compartmentation, the HVACcomponents, the ventilation, the
door openings, all these thingsthat can factor into how the
fire got from point A to point B.
That's where it's reallycrucial that in that
(27:16):
presentation I talked about whatmakes you an expert.
How long have you beeninvestigating fires, mike?
No, actually, I mean my firstever fire was 2001,.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
but I wasn't a qualified fire investigator, I
was assisting another fireinvestigator, if that makes
sense.
So yeah, 2001,.
I've been investigating fires2005,.
I got my guidance qualification.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
So yeah, since then, basically, I tell everybody this
, or I told them at the class.
I said, just because youstarted investigating fires 20
years, 30 years, 40 years ago, Iactually took one of the
students I said who taught youhow to investigate fires?
What was the first fire thatyou investigated?
Well, it was this fire.
And I said what did you do?
Well, I took photographs.
(27:57):
I went around, I started fromthe least burn to the most burn,
everything that goes.
And did you do any debrisremoval?
Yeah, I did debris removal.
I dug it out and and I'm like,okay, who taught you how to do
that?
And he says, well, my captain.
And the captain.
Okay, the captain was there.
So I said, captain, who showedyou how to investigate fires?
He goes, you did.
He pointed at me and he goes,you did.
(28:17):
And I'm like, yes, when Itaught you I was learning.
What was in practice at thattime was in practice at that
time.
I have come to learn that whatwe did back in the 1990s and
(28:38):
even the early 2000s was notforensic work at all.
And I told them what I know nowis that what I was doing then
was not right Now.
Can I change my mind in another10 years, because we're always
progressing, sure.
Maybe I'll know in 10 yearsthat even what I'm doing right
now was not even perfect as well, but what we're doing right now
(28:59):
is certainly 100 times betterthan what we were doing 30 years
ago.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Absolutely, and I think the 921 has just come out
the new edition.
We've had numerous editions ofthat and I think in the UK I
come out the new edition.
We've had numerous editions ofthat and I think in the UK I was
on the John Lentini course forthe UK Association of Fire
Investigation.
He basically went through lotsof kind of myths of fire
investigation and what wasthought and is no longer thought
and I think you pick up onsomething that's really
important is that continuingprofessional development and
(29:25):
keeping yourself aware andkeeping your training hours up
and stuff like that.
So I often get taught by.
I used to run a three module forcranford university on fire
investigation and fires,explosions, and it was very
often the students would make melook at things.
That or new technology you'vealready mentioned that.
What have you thought aboutdoing a 3d scan?
No, I'm a pen and paper and aruler type guy.
(29:46):
You know the most, the mosttechnology I've got is a laser,
laser measure.
You know Well, try this new app, try this new app on your phone
and try this new app and it'sfantastic.
It does all the drawing for meand it does a 3D for me and it's
all there on my phone.
It's fantastic.
You're absolutely right.
What was accepted years ago andwhat now might be accepted now
is only going to continuallydevelop and fire investigation
(30:08):
and fire science is still prettyyoung.
In terms of it's not likefingerprints we haven't been
doing it for 120 years.
We started looking at fires inthe sort of 60s and 70s really,
and fire investigation 85, Ithink was the first and 85, I
think was the first edition.
That's not too long ago, 92.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
The first edition of 921 was in 92.
Yeah, the first edition of 921was in 92.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, I think the committee was set up in 85, and
then the first edition was 92.
If you look at that, that's notthat long ago really.
I mean, it might seem long agofor 20-year-olds, but for us
it's not that long ago,fantastic, okay, well, listen,
what would you say?
I want to focus on LatinAmerica.
(30:49):
If there's anyone listening inLatin America on this and they
want to be a fire investigator,what would you say to them,
whether they're engineers orfire service or from a police
background, is there anythingyou would sort of say, any roots
encouragement that you wouldsort of go to being practiced
now that maybe wasn't beingpracticed before, was that
(31:10):
there's actually more work beingdone on the forensic side of
the investigation, where takinginto account.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
For example, one of the things that we do is on
every fire we try to get anelectrical engineer to evaluate
and document the electricalsystem that's in place.
We understand the distribution,to make sure that all the
panels are installed correctly,the wiring is installed
(31:41):
correctly, that there's nodouble connections on one
circuit breaker, and we look forthose things.
And just recently we had a firewhere we thought that fire had
started because of a heatingelement in a processing plant
and the engineer traced thatcircuit back and found that it
(32:03):
was not connected.
Can you imagine if we wouldhave gotten to the point where
we didn't do that kind of workand then we'd say, yeah, the
fire started in this heatingelement and then somebody comes
in afterwards?
I mean, I don't know if anybodywould have come in afterwards,
but regardless, you have to dothat work.
You have to make sure don'tassume that the appliance was
(32:27):
connected or that the extensioncord was connected or something
was connected, or follow If youcan trace it back, make sure,
find out what protections it had, because I've seen that as well
, where people will say, well,it had to have been a short
circuit because the circuitbreaker is tripped okay, did you
even check the circuit breakerto make sure that the line that
(32:48):
it's protecting, the circuitthat it's protecting, is even
going to that particular area?
What I would tell the people inLatin America is forget about
what you've been told.
Back in the 90s, and one of thethings that I found out when I
first started investigatingfires in Mexico and Latin
America was they were stillreferring to the original Kirk's
(33:10):
fire investigation book.
They hadn't even heard of NFPA921.
There's very little literature,especially in Spanish language,
that they can refer to, so theyhad to kind of be based on some
of the other stuff that'salready been out there for some
time and very limited access tosome of those books.
(33:32):
So I think it's crucial thatthey continue to put into
practice what we're learning.
During these conferences, likethe ITC that's coming up in Las
Vegas, you have a lot of greatinstructors that are putting
together great presentations onlike what you mentioned right
(33:53):
now fluid dynamics, ventilationeffects, stuff like that that
normally we took for grantedbefore, but now we see that
there is quite a bit of aneffect on the fire growth and
development because of thesethings that we need to consider.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
And on the patterns as well.
You know, ventilation effectscan have massive.
You can see a clean burn andyou think, oh okay, you know,
have a look at that.
But it's actually a ventilationeffect as opposed to area of
origin.
The oxygen can do some weirdthings at different stages of
the fire.
I saw a cooker fire once and Iknew where it started, because
we actually started unattendedcooking the actual top of the
(34:30):
cooker itself it was kind oflike one of those overheads with
a grill that was absolutelypristine.
I just couldn't get my headaround it in the sense of the
fire was on the stovetop and soyou would expect, with an
unattended cooking fire, hot oilet cetera, it's going to
overflow.
But the actual top of it wasabsolutely pristine and that was
simply through.
There was no oxygen there, andthat really opened my eyes to
(34:50):
the effects of oxygen andventilation effects.
So yeah, you're absolutelyright.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
One of the things that I found when I was doing
some research as to how do youbecome an expert.
There was a great video that Ifound on YouTube where I forget
the gentleman's name, but hetalked about some of the things
four things that you need to bean expert in.
The main one was repeatedattempts with feedback.
I was like how many times haveyou investigated fires?
(35:16):
We've done hundreds of fires,thousands of fires.
How many times do we getfeedback from somebody outside
that says, yeah, I agree withthis, or you know what I don't
know about this, this doesn'treally make sense, or I don't
agree with this, or you knowwhat I don't know about this,
this doesn't really make sense,or I don't agree with this.
Having that feedback, I think,is very important.
Having a valid environment isone of the other things where
(35:38):
some people look at that.
From the point of view of someof those things that are
predictable, like fire patterns,fire dynamics and you just
mentioned a really good pointabout it can have different
effects.
Why did the fire go this wayinstead of that way?
I worked a fire recently with mysons.
I have four sons.
Three are firefighters.
In South Texas we had a prettybig barn fire where a fire
(36:01):
investigator from outside camein and his initial assessment
was that the fire started at agarage door opener.
When I was brought in and Ilooked at that, I'm like well
then, how did that fire startthere and get into this crawl
space over here?
It didn't make sense to me.
I said we got to do more.
I told the client I got to domore to be able to see how this
(36:26):
fire progressed.
Because if he's saying it wentfrom there to here, I don't know
.
I'm thinking that reallydoesn't jive with physics.
Sure enough, we investigate, wedig it out, we do the dirty
work that needs to be done andwe find out no, the fire did not
start up there, the firestarted in this crawl space,
(36:46):
some of those things where firedynamics is very important so
that we can understand how thatfire is going to flow, and I've
seen some videos on LinkedIn.
I see some folks that are doingsome experiments small scale,
but it really does prove thepoint that certain openings will
cause fires to move in acertain way.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, there's that little rig isn't there and they
do a fantastic demonstration.
It's a plastic kind of rig andit's LPG I think, and they light
fires and so they open upwindows.
You see the different fantastictools.
But yeah, I always say thatfire is a bit of an animal and
it wants to survive.
It will go wherever the oxygenis and it's fascinating and I
think as as well.
An important thing to say isthat I think even in your early
(37:29):
career I often felt this wasthat I'd look at something and
there would be a much moreexperienced fire investigator
there, not necessarily from myservice but from another service
or from a private practitioner,and they would say well, the
fire started here and I wouldlook at it and I would just go.
I'm not sure, I just can't seeit.
And that's kind of self-doubtwhen you are young in service
(37:51):
and you haven't had thatexposure.
But I think that's to beencouraged, in that if someone
questions me, I kind of welcomethat.
I welcome that and I thinkplease do question me, because I
don't want to write a reportthat may well go to end up in
court, certainly in the criminalsection.
I don't want to write a reportor come up with an opinion and
be wrong.
I'd much rather be wrong and betold I'm wrong early and say,
(38:12):
okay, yeah, I'm wrong, asopposed to let it get all the
way to someone's going to losesome of their life in terms of
imprisonment or I'm coming upwith the wrong determination and
I think it's really important.
I think that some of the bars,that if you look at some of the
smaller firms, I think thatsecond reading I will always
encourage it's a kind of everyfirm that I've ever looked at or
(38:33):
worked for.
It's a given that you give itto another investigator who's
not been to the scene and nothad any involvement in it, and
so you critique it, and I thinkfor some people, for some egos,
that's quite a difficult thingto say, to do.
I don't know what you thinkabout that.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I used to work for the State Fire Marshal's Office
in Texas and when they did theforensic, they established a
committee to go back and reviewall the cases that had been
worked previously, because Ibelieve it all started off of
that Willing case.
Yeah, talking again, yeah, andI remember talking to some of my
(39:10):
colleagues who worked for thestate farmhouse's office and it
was one of those.
Yeah, it's kind of like scarybecause you're like, yeah,
you're about to get put throughthe ringer, but I think that
it's a good thing.
It's going to keep us honestand it's going to make us, if
you're going to give an opinionabout a fire, make sure that you
(39:30):
do the work so that you candefend your opinion.
Don't just give an opinionbased on what you think could
have happened.
Do the work.
And again, I'm going back toeven if you do the best job and
you hit a nail right on the head, there's going to be people out
there who are going to say,well, you didn't do this, you
didn't do that, you didn't.
(39:50):
So be prepared, just beprepared.
The more work, the moredocumentation, the more
background that you have foryour opinion, the better you'll
be able to defend it.
But again, you know as well asI know there's some fires that
I'm like, oh man, I should havedone this.
When you come back and aftermaybe you review it a couple of
(40:12):
years later, you're like, man, Ishould have done this, I could
have done this better.
And I think that's important.
We have to critique ourselvesand be open to having somebody
like you or somebody like DrManci critique our work so that
we know, yeah, we're doingthings right or we can do things
(40:33):
better.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Exactly.
I think the important thing isin the criminal side.
We always put in statements theopinions based upon the
information at hand, and youknow it might not have all the
fire alarm data, for example.
So new information comes in.
It's not a problem for you tochange your opinion based upon
that new evidence that's comingin.
I think the problem only arisesreally is when you've got a
fire investigator who gives anopinion and then new information
(40:57):
that comes in that blows thathypothesis out of the water.
But he or she then sticks tothat same opinion because
there's either bias there or thepride involved in that.
And I think that's where thedanger is, in the sense of
there's nothing wrong with beingwrong as long as it's not a
malicious thing, it's not aslong as it's a conscious thing
of not being wrong and makingsure that new information does
(41:17):
come in.
And I think you're right.
I think I've been to a few fires.
I always approach every fire ifI can.
I always think, well, where amI going to be if this goes to
court?
Think, well, where am I goingto be if this goes to court?
Where am I going to be attacked?
In effect, where does thedefense lie.
If I've got a very simple fire,unattended cooking, and it's
very obvious that someone's puta pizza box on the top and the
hob is on and the fire is verysmall, you've got the v pattern
(41:39):
there, I always still go right,okay, it's very obvious.
And there will be fireinvestigators, what I call a
drive by investigation.
They'll drive, they'll be therefor about an hour and a half,
two hours, take some photographs.
Okay, it's obvious, and it isobvious, there's no doubt about
that.
But at the same time I think,well, there's a toaster there.
I've got to rule that out.
So I need to photograph thetoaster.
(42:00):
And there's an electrical plugthere, there's a charger there
and that might well have beenburnt.
So I've got to rule out.
Because, even though it's veryobvious, when and if it ever
went to call, someone could saywell, have you excluded that
item?
Have you excluded that plug?
Did you exclude the toaster?
And if you haven't, even thoughit's obvious to everybody, then
it kind of undermines yourprofessionalism, I think,
(42:21):
undermines your theory, really.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
So that's just my personal thoughts yeah, again,
this profession is alwaysimproving, it's changing.
We're seeing the benefits oftechnology and the testing.
Testing is, I think, key for usto understand how this works.
And going from an ignitionsequence to a full blown out
(42:46):
fire, I'm really excited Again.
I wish I was 30 years old againIf we got to pass everything
that we know.
We got to pass that on to thenext generation of fire
investigators that are comingalong.
Hopefully they can take it fromwhere they're at and run with
it.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Sure, sure, mario Ricciardo, it's been absolutely
fascinating.
I could talk for you foranother hour, but I tried to
keep the episodes to a certaintimeframe.
But we'll certainly have you onagain, but it's been absolutely
fascinating.
I'd like to say to you, toevery guest, really, is there
anything that you really, as aburning issue excuse the pun for
you that you really want to getacross today to any of the
(43:27):
Latin American fireinvestigators, any investigators
around the world?
Is there any top tips or onekind of issue you'd like to sort
of champion?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, I guess if there's one thing that I've
learned is just because you'vebeen doing fire investigations
for 10 years, 20 years, whateveramount of years doesn't mean
that you're doing it right.
Make sure that you're puttingin the time.
Read, study, do the testing.
We learn so much from testing.
(43:57):
That's how you become an expert.
Just because Captain Joe showedyou how to investigate a fire
10 years ago, that doesn'tqualify you to be an expert.
There's certainly a lot morethings that you have to do, and
so if you really want to be anexpert and you really want to do
this work, put the time, putthe effort in that you need to.
(44:19):
And I've heard people say I'mone of the best fire
investigators they know and I'mlike there's no way to qualify
that.
There's no way to qualify thatI can't compare myself to
something or anybody.
There's no qualifications outthere for anybody.
Do the best that you can do.
(44:42):
Don't worry about who's thebest.
Don't worry about making surethat you're doing the best work
possible, and everything elsewill fall into place.
You've got people that you cancount on, like you now.
I consider you somebody, now aresource that I can talk to, dr
Manci, dr Kintari is another guythat I love.
I mean Dr Kintari and I haveknown each other for a while now
and he's a great resource.
(45:03):
Dr DeHaan, when he was herewith us, he was somebody that I
would always talk to and again,I've just used the people, the
resources that we have.
There's so many of us out therethat have this experience and
resources that we can go to forinformation and ideas about.
Hey, have you thought aboutthis?
(45:23):
That's the best thing.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, I think it's important to say.
I think every time I've reachedout to somebody I mean I
experienced in this podcast, Iwasn't 100% sure I would have
more than one or two episodes,because the more I've reached
out to people, everyone iswilling to come on and give
their expertise and theirexperience and to try and build
a community and try and buildthat educational knowledge, I
(45:46):
guess, across the board.
So once again, ricardo, thanksever so much for coming on.
I really really appreciate itand without the guests this
wouldn't be anything.
So I really appreciate yourtime.
I think is it evening timethere for you, or morning now,
isn't it?
It's morning, it's 10 o'clockhere in Monterey, monterey, yeah
, and I actually did my firstIAAI course in San Antonio, so
course in San Antonio.
So is that the South Texas orEast Texas?
(46:08):
That's?
Speaker 2 (46:08):
considered South Texas, but it's about 226 miles
north of South Texas Gotcha Okay, when I'm originally from in
far Texas.
So that is South.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I mean you can't get any further south than far.
All right, well, thanks so much, ricardo.
I really appreciate your timeand thanks again.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Thank you, mike.
I appreciate it.
Hopefully everything goes wellwith this podcast and if you
need any recommendations, I knowPaiva, he's a commander with
Brazil Okay, great.
He's also an English speaker.
Luisma, who's in Argentina,reto, who's in Guatemala.
There's plenty of other folkswho can give you insights on
(46:51):
Latin America.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, brilliant.
I hope this podcast sort ofhighlights the need for these
textbooks and bits and piecesand some of those courses online
.
I mean, cfi Trainer is afantastic resource, but if
you're not an English speakerthen you're going to be in
difficulty.
So hopefully the IAI islistening and maybe they'll
start putting some more stuffout in Spanish and other
languages as well.
Yeah, all right, thanks so much.
Thanks very much.
(47:13):
Appreciate your time.
Cheers, thank you.
Hey, thank you for listening toCSI on Fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our webpage.
Remember factor nonverber.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Cheers.
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and, episode after episode,
we'll attempt to excavate theoften difficult but always
fascinating world of the fireinvestigator.
Welcome to CSI on Fire, yourfire investigation podcast.
(00:27):
I'm Mike Molden, your host, andtoday, I think, is the 14th
episode.
We've got a fantastic guest ontoday I've got Ricardo Torres.
Welcome to the podcast andplease, as I like to do,
introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thanks, mike, I appreciate the invitation and
again, it's an honor to be onhere with you.
I've heard some of your otherguests and you truly have a
great thing going now with thispodcast and congratulations to
you for making it so interestingand getting a wide array of
subjects being talked about.
Sure, I'll tell you a littlebit about myself.
(01:01):
I started off as a volunteerfirefighter in 1986 in the city
of Pharr, texas.
I was just 18.
What got me interested in thefire service was auto mechanics.
Teacher was a volunteerfirefighter in Edinburgh, texas.
He had his personal vehicle inthe shop all the time and he had
(01:22):
a radio, one of these Plectronradios where you can listen to
all the radio traffic from thelocal fire departments.
It was really exciting for meas a kid to listen to all these
calls for house fires, grassfires, vehicle accidents, and
that woke up an interest in me.
(01:43):
And as soon as I turned 18, Ijoined the volunteer fire
department in FAR.
The rest is history.
I joined the pay department inOctober of 87.
After I was offered a job.
I was going through technicalschool for automotive mechanics
at that time when the job offercame in and at that point I was
hooked.
(02:04):
I started my career as afirefighter and through the
years what happened or whatmoved me into fire
investigations really was atragedy that occurred in our
family.
One of my cousins lost twochildren in a house fire in San
Juan, texas, and it wasdisheartening for me to hear
(02:25):
from my family where everybodywas looking to me for answers.
And up to that point I was agung-ho firefighter.
I loved fire.
What I did doing rescues andall that investigations was
really not in my radar,especially because at that time
(02:45):
the local fire marshal there wasa lot of people that talked
about how the fires were alwaysundetermined.
And after this fire occurredbecause the local city where it
happened they didn't have a firemarshal, so they asked him to
do the investigation and hisinvestigation resulted in
findings of the children wereplaying with matches.
(03:07):
They brought in anotherinvestigator on the private side
and I'm not privy to what hesaid, but it was related to an
electrical malfunction.
We had two different versions ofwhat had happened and at that
point I was like of what hadhappened and at that point I was
like how can we have such a bigdifference?
(03:27):
It was at that point that Idecided you know what I'm going
to learn how to investigatefires and I'm going to be able
to give people the right answer,or at least the best possible
answer, so that they can feelcomfortable or at least know
what happened, whether it's aloss of life or a loss of a
(03:47):
business.
Right now, most of the fires weinvestigate in Mexico and Latin
America are huge commercialindustrial processing plants or
manufacturing plants, andhundreds of families are left
without jobs, and it's alsoimportant for them to understand
you know what happens in fires,because the sole purpose, aside
(04:10):
from finding out what happened,is to prevent them from
happening again.
So, in a nutshell, that was apretty big nutshell, but that's
how I got to where we're atright now, mike.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Great and you've already mentioned it there, but
you're a pioneer in the sense ofyou're the first Latin American
fire investigator we've had on,so we want to talk a bit more
about that.
I know that you're a certifiedinstructor for the IWI and I
know that you've had a certainremit to be given in South
America.
So if you just want to brief usand talk us a little bit about
that, Sure, the IWI.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I hold it very dear to my heart.
When I was first asked to join,I was still in the fire service
and I didn't know what it wasabout, so I started to do some
research.
The folks that invited me KenFinley from the Texas chapter
and former president, pastpresident of the IAAI asked me
(05:02):
hey, I want you to meet Tom Feefrom California.
He's a great guy.
Tom Fee was also past presidentof the association and we sat
down at one of the conferencesand talked about expanding the
global footprint of the IAAIinto Latin America.
There was already chapters offcontinent, as we like to say.
(05:22):
Right, our focus was into LatinAmerica, and so we started off
with Chapter 70, which was alocal chapter in Northwest
Mexico, and Joe Rosas, whopassed away a couple of years
ago.
He was the president, but thatstarted off.
What I think really started togarner interest in other
(05:45):
countries.
And I remember in 2012, Ibelieve, we were in Jacksonville
, florida, and we had four fireinvestigators or firefighters
from Brazil go to that IWAITC,as well as other from Panama,
and it was the first time that Ihad talked to another one from
Colombia.
(06:06):
So there was a small group ofinvestigators from other
countries that had come in tothe IAAI.
They had heard about the IAAIand that really was kind of like
the springboard to forming thefirst international chapter of
multi-countries, which wasChapter 79.
I believe that was in 2014.
(06:26):
We had our first meeting in LasVegas.
We elected our first presidentfrom Colombia, germán, and after
that we started really pushing.
We had our first conference forChapter 79 in Panama and then,
after Panama, we went to Mexicoand then from Mexico we went to
Colombia and then, after Panama,we went to Mexico and then from
Mexico we went to Colombia andthen, after Colombia, we went to
(06:48):
Chile and after that is whenthe pandemic hit.
So we didn't have for a coupleof years, but it was really a
great new thing that attractedso many more fire investigators
and now we've got a really goodgroup, a lot of fire
investigators from all overSouth America.
(07:09):
We've got CFIs now fireinvestigators who have obtained
their certified fireinvestigator certification I
can't even remember the numberof fire investigator technicians
that also now are certified andevidence collection technicians
, and we're trying, we'repushing to make all these.
One of the things that Iremember when I first started
(07:31):
interacting with a lot of thepeople in Latin America was
their perception that thesecertifications were not
available to them, and I wasreally like, wait a minute, what
do you mean?
It's not available?
Well, it was not available intheir minds because everything
was in English.
Those who did not speak orunderstand English, that was a
(07:52):
big wall for them.
Yeah, sure that prevented themfrom being able to do what they
wanted to do, which was getthese certifications.
So the IAAI has been very goodin making on CFI Trainer.
There's a few of those modulesthat are now translated into
Spanish.
They have the subtitles inSpanish, which is great, which
(08:15):
is probably one of the bestthings to have happened, because
that's also given them theviewpoint that the IAAI is
interested in bringing themalong and making these
certifications available.
I think everybody's excited,everybody's been happy with the
results from that initiative.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I think it's fantastic.
I mean, saudi Arabia is Arabicand desperately trying to learn
some Arabic, because language isoften some stuff.
That's not just a languagebarrier, it's a relationship
barrier sometimes.
I remember I lived in BocaRaton in Florida for about nine
months.
Spanish was so common in thelower part of certainly in
Florida again, just trying topick up some.
(08:56):
I've noticed it here.
If you can just even make theeffort to try and show that you
are obviously a native Englishspeaker and the Brits are
terrible at learning otherlanguages, that's a fact.
It's as simple as that.
I think trying to learn itobviously builds bridges and
helps out communication.
I think I think it's fantasticthat the IWI are looking at
(09:16):
Spanish and I think they shouldbe looking at other languages as
well to bring in.
They are InternationalAssociation of Arts and so it
should be international language.
Really Fantastic.
I mean, let's take you on.
You've covered your sort ofyour fire service, your public
sort of service.
I know that you're obviously achief fire investigator for FIG.
Now Do you just want to tell uswhat FIG is and take us into
your sort of public sector?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Sure.
So FIG, forensic InvestigationsGroup Global, which I am the
chief fire investigator for.
We're a sister company of FIG,which is Forensic Investigations
Group in the US.
Rick Jones is the chief fireinvestigator for FIG.
So Rick Jones and I we've beenlongtime friends and we talked
(09:57):
about doing this, having acompany, an expansion into
Mexico and Latin America.
I had already worked with acouple of other outfits from the
US and quickly learned thatthere was limitations to trying
to run a forensic consultingfirm in Mexico with people that
(10:18):
are not from Mexico, like youjust mentioned, that are not
from Mexico, like you justmentioned.
The biggest challenge waslanguage.
Communication, which is key inany business, is especially,
(10:39):
even more profound when you'retalking about findings of
forensic nature, because youagree with me that there's
different languages, even withinthe community of fire
investigators, when you'retalking about engineers, when
you're talking aboutinvestigators who come from the
fire service background,investigators who come from the
(10:59):
police background, and even now,what I see and one of the new
element that's coming in now, isthe students that are coming
out of the universities with thedegrees in fire investigation,
which I think is great, the bestthing that could happen to our
profession.
Give you an example In Mexico,there is no fire investigation
(11:24):
degree or certification oranything that you can say.
Oh well, if you want to be afire investigator, you need to
meet these requirements, and wefound out that that happens as
well in other countries.
One of the things that I thinkit's coming upon us is to try to
educate people, not only thepublic, but also the people that
(11:48):
we work with.
In my case, we work with a lotof insurance companies,
adjusters, brokers.
When you make it a key point ofyour operation to put forth
some education or programs tohelp them understand what we do,
(12:08):
it's imperative.
In our company, we have FigGlobal Fire Academy, which was
designed to begin with toeducate those insurance
professionals, and we've hadright after the pandemic or
right when the pandemic started.
That's when we started.
Actually, it was one of thescariest things.
We started this company in 2019and the pandemic hits in March
(12:32):
of 2020.
And it was like we were ninemonths in and I thought, well,
there we go, we're done, butfortunately for us, we were able
to survive during these firstfew years.
We're going on five years.
Now.
In July, we'll have five yearsoperating in Mexico.
We're excited because, like I'mtelling you.
(12:55):
One of the things that wewanted to do was be able to help
the clients in Mexicounderstand.
Well, look, I'll give youanother example of why it's
important.
Every fire in Mexico, when Ifirst started working in Mexico,
was classified as the causebeing a short circuit.
A short circuit caused a fireEvery fire.
(13:17):
It's that complex.
Yeah, I think somebody had likea template for a short circuit
fire and they would just stampit and send it on in.
It was like, well, no, I mean,even the laws of statistics tell
you that that can't be true,that 100% of the fires cannot be
caused by short circuits.
It was important for us to beable to show them that well, you
(13:40):
have to investigate fires froma forensic perspective, don't
just go in.
I remember some of the fireswhen I first started working and
there was all these excavatormachines and stuff going on and
they were just ripping stuff outand it was like wait a minute,
nobody's documented any of theelectrical, any of the
(14:02):
appliances or machinery that wasinstalled in that area.
How can we just start pullingstuff out and then later on, oh,
wait a minute, maybe weshouldn't have done that because
that was important for thisfire.
So those are the things thatwe've done, and I'll tell you
something else.
I mean, I'm just totally amazedwith all the technology that's
(14:22):
come around in the past coupleof years.
We've got drones, we've got 3Dscanners, we've got on our staff
a couple of engineers who arejust amazing in being able to
see what's coming in the nextfour years five years, because
(14:55):
things are happening so rapidlynow.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Sure, yeah, I mean particularly AI now artificial
intelligence, and how that'sgoing to impact on things like
fluid mechanics and modeling andstuff like that.
Things that would take would bevery blocky and I don't get
involved in that.
I always think that stepoutside your area of expertise
really, and if you've got amodel or something, let someone
who's used to modeling to do it,cause they'll do it downside
(15:18):
quick and down type of effort.
But I think AI is going to playa role.
But certainly from myexperience you almost
disappointed now if you haven'tgot some sort of drone footage,
because either the police in theUK anyway here as well, you
know it's fairly quickly thatsomeone will put a drone up very
early on and that footage canbe absolutely invaluable of
where the area of the origin,especially when it's burned for
(15:40):
12 hours, and you haven't got alot left.
And I think it's fantastic aswell in Latin America that you
are.
I read a statistic somewhereabout the number of fire
investigators, forensicengineers that are going to be
required, and a lot of the oldschool are kind of simply
through retirement or throughold age.
It's sort of you know, movingon and out, and I think there's
a massive kind of gap comingthrough for those who really I'm
(16:03):
hoping that podcasts like thischatting to you and to the guys
and girls in Latin America thatthey realize that it's a career
path and it's a fascinatingcareer path, a really
interesting career path.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Right, and I think you find out pretty quickly if
you're going to love doing thisor if you're going to hate it.
There's a lot of dirty work.
That's what I tell theengineers when I'm interviewing
them to bring them on.
One of the first things I tellthem is because a lot of
engineers are like hey, I canwork in an office, I can work in
a lab, but getting them out tothe fire scenes doing the
(16:36):
excavation, all the process ofbeing able to the documentation,
is real easy for them becausethey understand.
Okay, yeah, we've got to makesure that we know how this
installation was done.
But when it starts to movingstuff out, that's where we get
into a little bit of a situationwhere some of them are like,
hey, wait a minute, I'm not cutout for this work, I'm not cut
(16:56):
out for this.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, when it's pouring down with rain, when
you've been there for 12 hours,you're in fire.
Debris mush.
It really does start toidentify those who are probably
cut out for it and those who arenot.
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, shifting through debris and picking out
stuff from the debris is prettywork.
We're fortunate enough we havein our company we've got a group
of technicians that arespecialized for that.
They've got all the experiencefor cutting, welding torches,
everything.
When we get a fire, I can bringin our own people to do the
(17:29):
excavation, and that reallyhelps out so that we don't lose
evidence One of the largestlosses we worked here in Mexico.
When we got there, the localauthorities didn't allow us to
do any of the excavation work.
They said no, we're going totake care of it.
They hired a company to do itand with all the cameras inside
of this processing plant, weknew exactly where the fire had
(17:51):
started.
So we were like we just need toget to that point.
Once we get to that point, wecan start looking for any
evidence.
Well, they ripped everythingout and pretty much left a clean
spot, and we were like this isnot what you're supposed to do
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I've had a very similar experience in that we
were interested in a particularvehicle within a large
industrial fire.
It was unsafe to get into.
So you turn up day one, you doyour outside and you do as much
as you can.
You have a little sneak in atsome points if it's healthy,
safety wise, and then it's downto a contractor to demolition
and you try and talk themthrough but you can't be there
(18:29):
on the loss adjusters.
The insurance company won'tallow you to be there to sort of
have that constant oversight,and we highlighted this area
that we were, similar to you,very interested in.
The next time we came back theplace was just gone, just
flattened 100%, and any kind ofreclaim or a recovery just went
out the window.
That's fantastic.
(18:49):
They called the excavationevidence team.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, it's the forensic excavation evidence
recovery team.
Good.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Okay, cool.
I think that's brilliant in thesense of I've done a few jobs
because I'm from a forensicbackground.
I've done a few jobs around,not necessarily fire related,
but because I was a plumbing andheating engineer when I first
left school.
We've had some murders of bitsand pieces where the pipes need
to be taken out, but they needto be taken out in a forensic
kind of way, and getting anormal plumber in who's not
forensically aware and not a CSImight not do that in the right
(19:19):
way Clean blades, especially ina specific tool, and making sure
that you don't lose things inthe pipes as they're.
And, without being too graphic,you might want some of those
things that are in the pipes.
So, yeah, I think that's afantastic kind of asset really.
I know that you were recentlyon a marine and fire
investigation course, and that'ssomething I'm quite interested
in as well.
I think that was this month,was it?
Or the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That was in February, yes, february.
Yeah, it was in West VirginiaAgain, one of those things where
I had heard of theInternational Association of
Marine Investigators.
A few years ago, because of ourwork schedule, I wasn't able to
attend any of the conferences,but these last few years we've
been getting a lot more work inthe marine industry.
(20:02):
So I decided you know what I'mgoing to go and see how good of
a conference this is and howgood of a training it is.
I've got to tell you I wascompletely satisfied with the
level of instruction, theinformation that's being put out
there.
I mean it's a class act, verygreat organization.
(20:22):
I mean they take pride and theydo a lot of training for the
membership.
I think it's about to take offas well.
I told them if you want toexpand into Latin America, we
can get some of the key peopleso that you can do that as well.
And again, I don't want to belike a jack of all trades,
(20:43):
especially at my age.
I've got seven engineers now,young guys in their 30s.
I'd rather send them, let themget certified.
It's a lot better as well,because they also see that as an
investment in theirprofessional growth and
development and it's also a wayfor them to specialize in
(21:04):
certain things Because, again,everybody comes from different
backgrounds and there may besome interest, like I've got one
engineer who's very good atdoing the 3D imaging and
software.
You want to give them the toolsand the training so they can
get better and expand on that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I think it's really important that you identify
employees or colleagues who arereally interested in this.
There's no point in puttingsomeone on a marine fire
investigation course if theyhaven't really got an interest
in marine.
I think it's really importantto sort of identify and let
people go the route that theywant to go.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
I think they have a massiveamount.
I only found out about theminternational social marine
(21:44):
investigator.
I only found out that probablya couple of years ago.
They're not really big on themarketing side of things.
I mean, mean, I'm not gettingsponsored by them today or
anything like that, but fromwhat I saw on your LinkedIn
profile and a few other peoplewere about these courses, how
many boats did they burn?
They burned quite a lot ofboats on the course.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
In the conference that I went to, they didn't burn
any boats, but the week beforethe IAAI had a Marine class and
I believe they burned six boatson that one Six boats.
The issue now is like okay,what are you looking for?
A practical work or thecertifications, which I don't
believe the IWAI has acertification right now for
(22:23):
Marine fire.
I believe that they're lookingat doing something like what
they did with the vehicle fireendorsement.
Eventually, I'm sure thatthey'll do something, or I think
it's already in the works wherethey're doing something like
that.
But the only other way for youto show that you have the
training is they have a fireinvestigator and an investigator
(22:43):
certification.
Gotcha yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Fantastic, okay, good .
So that's the top course tolook at and, as I say, we're not
in any commission, but I justnoticed that and I thought that
looked like a good course and Ithought we'd have a quick chat
about it.
Today I see that you run aneducation program.
You run a series of webinars aswell.
Are they English or in Spanish?
Are you mixing the two, or isit predominantly for Latin
America?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
It's predominantly for Latin America.
Like I had mentioned earlier,we started off so we could
educate the client base inMexico and Latin America and
we've had response from peopleall the way from Brazil
attending the webinars.
Fatima Zuniga, who runs thatprogram, has been excellent in
promoting it.
You talk about putting it outon social media and advertising
(23:32):
and stuff like that.
She's been one of those keyfigures in our company where
she's always active and pushingour name brand out there, and
the webinar is just one of thosethings that she's been very
instrumental in putting outthere and we've had a really
good response, and so it startedoff mainly for insurance
professionals, but it'stransitioning now to also doing
(23:56):
training with fire investigators.
Last year we did our firstvehicle fire course where we did
I believe it was a total of 28hours where we did theory
instruction and then we actuallydid practical.
We burned a couple of cars in atraining field and we had
people from Colombia, ecuador,mexico show up to that class and
(24:21):
it was a fantastic class, evenfor me.
I hadn't burned a car and Idon't know.
I can't remember when was thelast time I burned a car, but
when I was burning these cars Iwas like, wow, look at this,
there's so many things that weassume that happened.
If I hadn't recorded some ofthese things, I would have been
thinking something that reallywasn't true.
(24:42):
It would have been myinterpretation of what I was
seeing.
I just did a class in SouthTexas Fire Investigative
Association where I was one ofthe founding fathers for that
organization as well.
Okay, I was invited to teachthis class where we did the
burning mystery, because we'vehad quite a few fires in South
Texas in the past year where thecause of the fire was not
(25:06):
determined, so we revisited.
One of the things that I reallytook heart was when, speaking to
Dr Manci I believe you also hadhim on your yes, this week
actually.
Yeah, and he's a great friendof mine.
I love Dr Manci, he's one ofthe best in the business, and we
got to talking about this, thebook on the London fire and some
(25:27):
of the things that they did,and I told him while I was in
the class, we connected on Zoomwith him and he was able to talk
to the group and tell him hey,it's an endeavor that is.
It's not easy.
You got to put some time intowhat you're doing, especially
when you're trying to go off ofinformation that probably has
(25:49):
been lost.
And one of the things that Iwas telling him is if they're
able to go off of informationthat probably has been lost, and
one of the things that I wastelling them is if they're able
to go back and look at this firethat occurred back then.
Certainly these fires areoccurring right now and you all
have full access to everything.
There should be no reason whywe can't at least identify the
area of origin Maybe not aspecific point of origin, but an
(26:11):
area of origin.
And at the end of the day, it'slike I told them and I don't
know if you agree with this,mike, but I tell everybody this
now at the end of the day, it isan opinion that you are giving,
based on what facts you knowabout the case or about the fire
witness statements, firepatterns, fire dynamics, all
(26:34):
these things that come into playfor you to form an opinion
about what caused the fire,where it originated and caused
the fire.
So I tell everybody it's anopinion, it's not facts.
Everybody can give an opinion,but whose opinion is more
believable?
The guy who's on the site fortwo hours and says, yeah, it's
(26:55):
undetermined?
Or somebody who spends sometime there and understands the
compartmentation, the HVACcomponents, the ventilation, the
door openings, all these thingsthat can factor into how the
fire got from point A to point B.
That's where it's reallycrucial that in that
(27:16):
presentation I talked about whatmakes you an expert.
How long have you beeninvestigating fires, mike?
No, actually, I mean my firstever fire was 2001,.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
but I wasn't a qualified fire investigator, I
was assisting another fireinvestigator, if that makes
sense.
So yeah, 2001,.
I've been investigating fires2005,.
I got my guidance qualification.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
So yeah, since then, basically, I tell everybody this
, or I told them at the class.
I said, just because youstarted investigating fires 20
years, 30 years, 40 years ago, Iactually took one of the
students I said who taught youhow to investigate fires?
What was the first fire thatyou investigated?
Well, it was this fire.
And I said what did you do?
Well, I took photographs.
(27:57):
I went around, I started fromthe least burn to the most burn,
everything that goes.
And did you do any debrisremoval?
Yeah, I did debris removal.
I dug it out and and I'm like,okay, who taught you how to do
that?
And he says, well, my captain.
And the captain.
Okay, the captain was there.
So I said, captain, who showedyou how to investigate fires?
He goes, you did.
He pointed at me and he goes,you did.
(28:17):
And I'm like, yes, when Itaught you I was learning.
What was in practice at thattime was in practice at that
time.
I have come to learn that whatwe did back in the 1990s and
(28:38):
even the early 2000s was notforensic work at all.
And I told them what I know nowis that what I was doing then
was not right Now.
Can I change my mind in another10 years, because we're always
progressing, sure.
Maybe I'll know in 10 yearsthat even what I'm doing right
now was not even perfect as well, but what we're doing right now
(28:59):
is certainly 100 times betterthan what we were doing 30 years
ago.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Absolutely, and I think the 921 has just come out
the new edition.
We've had numerous editions ofthat and I think in the UK I
come out the new edition.
We've had numerous editions ofthat and I think in the UK I was
on the John Lentini course forthe UK Association of Fire
Investigation.
He basically went through lotsof kind of myths of fire
investigation and what wasthought and is no longer thought
and I think you pick up onsomething that's really
important is that continuingprofessional development and
(29:25):
keeping yourself aware andkeeping your training hours up
and stuff like that.
So I often get taught by.
I used to run a three module forcranford university on fire
investigation and fires,explosions, and it was very
often the students would make melook at things.
That or new technology you'vealready mentioned that.
What have you thought aboutdoing a 3d scan?
No, I'm a pen and paper and aruler type guy.
(29:46):
You know the most, the mosttechnology I've got is a laser,
laser measure.
You know Well, try this new app, try this new app on your phone
and try this new app and it'sfantastic.
It does all the drawing for meand it does a 3D for me and it's
all there on my phone.
It's fantastic.
You're absolutely right.
What was accepted years ago andwhat now might be accepted now
is only going to continuallydevelop and fire investigation
(30:08):
and fire science is still prettyyoung.
In terms of it's not likefingerprints we haven't been
doing it for 120 years.
We started looking at fires inthe sort of 60s and 70s really,
and fire investigation 85, Ithink was the first and 85, I
think was the first edition.
That's not too long ago, 92.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
The first edition of 921 was in 92.
Yeah, the first edition of 921was in 92.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, I think the committee was set up in 85, and
then the first edition was 92.
If you look at that, that's notthat long ago really.
I mean, it might seem long agofor 20-year-olds, but for us
it's not that long ago,fantastic, okay, well, listen,
what would you say?
I want to focus on LatinAmerica.
(30:49):
If there's anyone listening inLatin America on this and they
want to be a fire investigator,what would you say to them,
whether they're engineers orfire service or from a police
background, is there anythingyou would sort of say, any roots
encouragement that you wouldsort of go to being practiced
now that maybe wasn't beingpracticed before, was that
(31:10):
there's actually more work beingdone on the forensic side of
the investigation, where takinginto account.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
For example, one of the things that we do is on
every fire we try to get anelectrical engineer to evaluate
and document the electricalsystem that's in place.
We understand the distribution,to make sure that all the
panels are installed correctly,the wiring is installed
(31:41):
correctly, that there's nodouble connections on one
circuit breaker, and we look forthose things.
And just recently we had a firewhere we thought that fire had
started because of a heatingelement in a processing plant
and the engineer traced thatcircuit back and found that it
(32:03):
was not connected.
Can you imagine if we wouldhave gotten to the point where
we didn't do that kind of workand then we'd say, yeah, the
fire started in this heatingelement and then somebody comes
in afterwards?
I mean, I don't know if anybodywould have come in afterwards,
but regardless, you have to dothat work.
You have to make sure don'tassume that the appliance was
(32:27):
connected or that the extensioncord was connected or something
was connected, or follow If youcan trace it back, make sure,
find out what protections it had, because I've seen that as well
, where people will say, well,it had to have been a short
circuit because the circuitbreaker is tripped okay, did you
even check the circuit breakerto make sure that the line that
(32:48):
it's protecting, the circuitthat it's protecting, is even
going to that particular area?
What I would tell the people inLatin America is forget about
what you've been told.
Back in the 90s, and one of thethings that I found out when I
first started investigatingfires in Mexico and Latin
America was they were stillreferring to the original Kirk's
(33:10):
fire investigation book.
They hadn't even heard of NFPA921.
There's very little literature,especially in Spanish language,
that they can refer to, so theyhad to kind of be based on some
of the other stuff that'salready been out there for some
time and very limited access tosome of those books.
(33:32):
So I think it's crucial thatthey continue to put into
practice what we're learning.
During these conferences, likethe ITC that's coming up in Las
Vegas, you have a lot of greatinstructors that are putting
together great presentations onlike what you mentioned right
(33:53):
now fluid dynamics, ventilationeffects, stuff like that that
normally we took for grantedbefore, but now we see that
there is quite a bit of aneffect on the fire growth and
development because of thesethings that we need to consider.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
And on the patterns as well.
You know, ventilation effectscan have massive.
You can see a clean burn andyou think, oh okay, you know,
have a look at that.
But it's actually a ventilationeffect as opposed to area of
origin.
The oxygen can do some weirdthings at different stages of
the fire.
I saw a cooker fire once and Iknew where it started, because
we actually started unattendedcooking the actual top of the
(34:30):
cooker itself it was kind oflike one of those overheads with
a grill that was absolutelypristine.
I just couldn't get my headaround it in the sense of the
fire was on the stovetop and soyou would expect, with an
unattended cooking fire, hot oilet cetera, it's going to
overflow.
But the actual top of it wasabsolutely pristine and that was
simply through.
There was no oxygen there, andthat really opened my eyes to
(34:50):
the effects of oxygen andventilation effects.
So yeah, you're absolutelyright.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
One of the things that I found when I was doing
some research as to how do youbecome an expert.
There was a great video that Ifound on YouTube where I forget
the gentleman's name, but hetalked about some of the things
four things that you need to bean expert in.
The main one was repeatedattempts with feedback.
I was like how many times haveyou investigated fires?
(35:16):
We've done hundreds of fires,thousands of fires.
How many times do we getfeedback from somebody outside
that says, yeah, I agree withthis, or you know what I don't
know about this, this doesn'treally make sense, or I don't
agree with this, or you knowwhat I don't know about this,
this doesn't really make sense,or I don't agree with this.
Having that feedback, I think,is very important.
Having a valid environment isone of the other things where
(35:38):
some people look at that.
From the point of view of someof those things that are
predictable, like fire patterns,fire dynamics and you just
mentioned a really good pointabout it can have different
effects.
Why did the fire go this wayinstead of that way?
I worked a fire recently with mysons.
I have four sons.
Three are firefighters.
In South Texas we had a prettybig barn fire where a fire
(36:01):
investigator from outside camein and his initial assessment
was that the fire started at agarage door opener.
When I was brought in and Ilooked at that, I'm like well
then, how did that fire startthere and get into this crawl
space over here?
It didn't make sense to me.
I said we got to do more.
I told the client I got to domore to be able to see how this
(36:26):
fire progressed.
Because if he's saying it wentfrom there to here, I don't know
.
I'm thinking that reallydoesn't jive with physics.
Sure enough, we investigate, wedig it out, we do the dirty
work that needs to be done andwe find out no, the fire did not
start up there, the firestarted in this crawl space,
(36:46):
some of those things where firedynamics is very important so
that we can understand how thatfire is going to flow, and I've
seen some videos on LinkedIn.
I see some folks that are doingsome experiments small scale,
but it really does prove thepoint that certain openings will
cause fires to move in acertain way.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, there's that little rig isn't there and they
do a fantastic demonstration.
It's a plastic kind of rig andit's LPG I think, and they light
fires and so they open upwindows.
You see the different fantastictools.
But yeah, I always say thatfire is a bit of an animal and
it wants to survive.
It will go wherever the oxygenis and it's fascinating and I
think as as well.
An important thing to say isthat I think even in your early
(37:29):
career I often felt this wasthat I'd look at something and
there would be a much moreexperienced fire investigator
there, not necessarily from myservice but from another service
or from a private practitioner,and they would say well, the
fire started here and I wouldlook at it and I would just go.
I'm not sure, I just can't seeit.
And that's kind of self-doubtwhen you are young in service
(37:51):
and you haven't had thatexposure.
But I think that's to beencouraged, in that if someone
questions me, I kind of welcomethat.
I welcome that and I thinkplease do question me, because I
don't want to write a reportthat may well go to end up in
court, certainly in the criminalsection.
I don't want to write a reportor come up with an opinion and
be wrong.
I'd much rather be wrong and betold I'm wrong early and say,
(38:12):
okay, yeah, I'm wrong, asopposed to let it get all the
way to someone's going to losesome of their life in terms of
imprisonment or I'm coming upwith the wrong determination and
I think it's really important.
I think that some of the bars,that if you look at some of the
smaller firms, I think thatsecond reading I will always
encourage it's a kind of everyfirm that I've ever looked at or
(38:33):
worked for.
It's a given that you give itto another investigator who's
not been to the scene and nothad any involvement in it, and
so you critique it, and I thinkfor some people, for some egos,
that's quite a difficult thingto say, to do.
I don't know what you thinkabout that.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I used to work for the State Fire Marshal's Office
in Texas and when they did theforensic, they established a
committee to go back and reviewall the cases that had been
worked previously, because Ibelieve it all started off of
that Willing case.
Yeah, talking again, yeah, andI remember talking to some of my
(39:10):
colleagues who worked for thestate farmhouse's office and it
was one of those.
Yeah, it's kind of like scarybecause you're like, yeah,
you're about to get put throughthe ringer, but I think that
it's a good thing.
It's going to keep us honestand it's going to make us, if
you're going to give an opinionabout a fire, make sure that you
(39:30):
do the work so that you candefend your opinion.
Don't just give an opinionbased on what you think could
have happened.
Do the work.
And again, I'm going back toeven if you do the best job and
you hit a nail right on the head, there's going to be people out
there who are going to say,well, you didn't do this, you
didn't do that, you didn't.
(39:50):
So be prepared, just beprepared.
The more work, the moredocumentation, the more
background that you have foryour opinion, the better you'll
be able to defend it.
But again, you know as well asI know there's some fires that
I'm like, oh man, I should havedone this.
When you come back and aftermaybe you review it a couple of
(40:12):
years later, you're like, man, Ishould have done this, I could
have done this better.
And I think that's important.
We have to critique ourselvesand be open to having somebody
like you or somebody like DrManci critique our work so that
we know, yeah, we're doingthings right or we can do things
(40:33):
better.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Exactly.
I think the important thing isin the criminal side.
We always put in statements theopinions based upon the
information at hand, and youknow it might not have all the
fire alarm data, for example.
So new information comes in.
It's not a problem for you tochange your opinion based upon
that new evidence that's comingin.
I think the problem only arisesreally is when you've got a
fire investigator who gives anopinion and then new information
(40:57):
that comes in that blows thathypothesis out of the water.
But he or she then sticks tothat same opinion because
there's either bias there or thepride involved in that.
And I think that's where thedanger is, in the sense of
there's nothing wrong with beingwrong as long as it's not a
malicious thing, it's not aslong as it's a conscious thing
of not being wrong and makingsure that new information does
(41:17):
come in.
And I think you're right.
I think I've been to a few fires.
I always approach every fire ifI can.
I always think, well, where amI going to be if this goes to
court?
Think, well, where am I goingto be if this goes to court?
Where am I going to be attacked?
In effect, where does thedefense lie.
If I've got a very simple fire,unattended cooking, and it's
very obvious that someone's puta pizza box on the top and the
hob is on and the fire is verysmall, you've got the v pattern
(41:39):
there, I always still go right,okay, it's very obvious.
And there will be fireinvestigators, what I call a
drive by investigation.
They'll drive, they'll be therefor about an hour and a half,
two hours, take some photographs.
Okay, it's obvious, and it isobvious, there's no doubt about
that.
But at the same time I think,well, there's a toaster there.
I've got to rule that out.
So I need to photograph thetoaster.
(42:00):
And there's an electrical plugthere, there's a charger there
and that might well have beenburnt.
So I've got to rule out.
Because, even though it's veryobvious, when and if it ever
went to call, someone could saywell, have you excluded that
item?
Have you excluded that plug?
Did you exclude the toaster?
And if you haven't, even thoughit's obvious to everybody, then
it kind of undermines yourprofessionalism, I think,
(42:21):
undermines your theory, really.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
So that's just my personal thoughts yeah, again,
this profession is alwaysimproving, it's changing.
We're seeing the benefits oftechnology and the testing.
Testing is, I think, key for usto understand how this works.
And going from an ignitionsequence to a full blown out
(42:46):
fire, I'm really excited Again.
I wish I was 30 years old againIf we got to pass everything
that we know.
We got to pass that on to thenext generation of fire
investigators that are comingalong.
Hopefully they can take it fromwhere they're at and run with
it.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Sure, sure, mario Ricciardo, it's been absolutely
fascinating.
I could talk for you foranother hour, but I tried to
keep the episodes to a certaintimeframe.
But we'll certainly have you onagain, but it's been absolutely
fascinating.
I'd like to say to you, toevery guest, really, is there
anything that you really, as aburning issue excuse the pun for
you that you really want to getacross today to any of the
(43:27):
Latin American fireinvestigators, any investigators
around the world?
Is there any top tips or onekind of issue you'd like to sort
of champion?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, I guess if there's one thing that I've
learned is just because you'vebeen doing fire investigations
for 10 years, 20 years, whateveramount of years doesn't mean
that you're doing it right.
Make sure that you're puttingin the time.
Read, study, do the testing.
We learn so much from testing.
(43:57):
That's how you become an expert.
Just because Captain Joe showedyou how to investigate a fire
10 years ago, that doesn'tqualify you to be an expert.
There's certainly a lot morethings that you have to do, and
so if you really want to be anexpert and you really want to do
this work, put the time, putthe effort in that you need to.
(44:19):
And I've heard people say I'mone of the best fire
investigators they know and I'mlike there's no way to qualify
that.
There's no way to qualify thatI can't compare myself to
something or anybody.
There's no qualifications outthere for anybody.
Do the best that you can do.
(44:42):
Don't worry about who's thebest.
Don't worry about making surethat you're doing the best work
possible, and everything elsewill fall into place.
You've got people that you cancount on, like you now.
I consider you somebody, now aresource that I can talk to, dr
Manci, dr Kintari is another guythat I love.
I mean Dr Kintari and I haveknown each other for a while now
and he's a great resource.
(45:03):
Dr DeHaan, when he was herewith us, he was somebody that I
would always talk to and again,I've just used the people, the
resources that we have.
There's so many of us out therethat have this experience and
resources that we can go to forinformation and ideas about.
Hey, have you thought aboutthis?
(45:23):
That's the best thing.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, I think it's important to say.
I think every time I've reachedout to somebody I mean I
experienced in this podcast, Iwasn't 100% sure I would have
more than one or two episodes,because the more I've reached
out to people, everyone iswilling to come on and give
their expertise and theirexperience and to try and build
a community and try and buildthat educational knowledge, I
(45:46):
guess, across the board.
So once again, ricardo, thanksever so much for coming on.
I really really appreciate itand without the guests this
wouldn't be anything.
So I really appreciate yourtime.
I think is it evening timethere for you, or morning now,
isn't it?
It's morning, it's 10 o'clockhere in Monterey, monterey, yeah
, and I actually did my firstIAAI course in San Antonio, so
course in San Antonio.
So is that the South Texas orEast Texas?
(46:08):
That's?
Speaker 2 (46:08):
considered South Texas, but it's about 226 miles
north of South Texas Gotcha Okay, when I'm originally from in
far Texas.
So that is South.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I mean you can't get any further south than far.
All right, well, thanks so much, ricardo.
I really appreciate your timeand thanks again.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Thank you, mike.
I appreciate it.
Hopefully everything goes wellwith this podcast and if you
need any recommendations, I knowPaiva, he's a commander with
Brazil Okay, great.
He's also an English speaker.
Luisma, who's in Argentina,reto, who's in Guatemala.
There's plenty of other folkswho can give you insights on
(46:51):
Latin America.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, brilliant.
I hope this podcast sort ofhighlights the need for these
textbooks and bits and piecesand some of those courses online
.
I mean, cfi Trainer is afantastic resource, but if
you're not an English speakerthen you're going to be in
difficulty.
So hopefully the IAI islistening and maybe they'll
start putting some more stuffout in Spanish and other
languages as well.
Yeah, all right, thanks so much.
Thanks very much.
(47:13):
Appreciate your time.
Cheers, thank you.
Hey, thank you for listening toCSI on Fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our webpage.
Remember factor nonverber.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Cheers.
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