May 22, 2024 • 49 mins
From the commando course to shifting sands of geology to the fiery depths of arson investigation, Steve Lloyd's career journey is nothing short of extraordinary.
(3) Steve Lloyd | LinkedIn
Our latest episode peels back the layers of his story, revealing a tenacious spirit that led him from an army child to a trusted fire investigator. His fascinating tale is a patchwork of resilience, adaptability, and the relentless pursuit of a true calling that lay hidden amidst life's unpredictable turns.
When the smoke clears on a fire scene, the delicate exercise of collaboration takes center stage.
Steve and I dissect the intricate relationship between public and private sectors, highlighting the unsung heroes of the investigative world.
The synergies drawn from joint efforts, akin to a football team where every assist counts, prove that the success of solving the fiery puzzles often lies in the unification of diverse expertise.
In the heart of the blaze, Steve's approach to arson detection and his embrace of continuous learning illuminate a path less traveled by many.
Budget constraints, education, and the integration of technology are but a few of the challenges he discusses, underscoring the need for a cohesive training framework. Whether it's analyzing explosion patterns or navigating the complexities of fire scenes,
Steve's insights offer a masterclass in the meticulous art of fire investigation.
Join us for a journey into the smoke, where knowledge and experience ignite to reveal truths otherwise consumed by the flames.
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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 the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Welcome to CSI.
(00:25):
This is episode 16.
I've got a fantastic guesttoday.
I've got Steve Lloyd On fulldisclosure.
I first met Steve, I think itwas September 2019.
Well, the actual job that wemet on, or the job that we were
concerned with, was in 23rd ofSeptember.
I remember that because it wasmy birthday.
So, yeah, that's when we firstmet Steve.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks very much for coming on.
(00:46):
As I've already briefed you up,really, I'll let you introduce
yourself and just go throughyour background and how you've
ended up on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hi, mike, I know it's morning here and it's kind of
lunchtime where you are, butprivileged to be here.
Thanks for the invite.
Yeah, steve Lloyd, I neverreally thought about fire
investigation or even fireservice actually as my career
ambition.
I was an army child movingaround a little bit when I was
younger and I got sent toboarding school and, to be fair,
it was a great experience forme, give me stability.
I think my education benefitedas a result of that.
(01:17):
I mean, it's not something Iwould advocate for my children,
I haven't done that, but anywayit was good for me.
I met somebody there one of thetutors and got me into thinking
about geology as a career andwho'd have thought, sort of
coming back all the way around,that stratigraphy, excavation,
stuff like that would be partand parcel of my ultimate career
choice.
But then it was about geologyand I was fascinated by the
(01:38):
whole idea of geology,oceanography as well.
I went on to polytechnic.
I wasn't smart enough to do auniversity, unfortunately at the
time, but Polytechnic was agreat experience for me, very,
very pragmatic course, and thengraduated in 86, did quite well
with my course, but then therewas the recession in the oil
industry, so no jobs.
As a newly graduated geologist,I'm looking around for work.
(01:59):
I ended up working in retail.
A big company local to us inManchester called Macro Did two
years there.
I hated it really and was justconstantly looking around for
something else to do.
It got worse because the guywho was, I suppose, was my busy
oppo at the time.
He got moved on so I was lefton my own and it was quite
apparent then I wasn't reallycut out for retail.
The management said listen,steve, we're going to let you go
(02:20):
.
All right, fine, but before yougo, will you work with the shop
fitters?
They're going to refit thisparticular department and it was
the best experience I'd had fortwo or three months.
They gave me my existingmanagement salary but I was
working with a team of shopfitters and we had a really good
crack and I got the sense ofthis is where I need to be.
I want to be hands-on withstuff rather than sort of sat
behind a desk or behind acomputer.
But anyway, that sort of cameto an end.
(02:41):
I was sort of scratching aroundfor a career move and I looked
at various things.
I applied to join the police,passed a test for that I'm not
sure what it was.
The police inspector comesaround to visit your family,
talk to your family and stufflike that, and it was all going
swimmingly well.
Then I got a phone call from afriend.
This company called ExplorationLogging XLOG were recruiting
geologists.
Get down to Slough, I think itwas.
(03:06):
There's a week induction andyou'll get a job.
Wow, drop the cops and straightdown there.
And I ended up working on afrustratingly enough on an
onshore rig in Nantwich, justdown the road from me.
It wasn't the glamorous sort ofaround the world Indiana Jones
looking for all the gas thingthat I thought it was going to
be.
It was a fairly routine anddull thing, but I ended up
working offshore in the NorthSea on the rigs, doing my bit,
and I was really realizing thenthat as a geologist you're
(03:26):
pretty well at the bottom of thefood chain, and where I wanted
to be was actually on thedrilling floor itself.
Where the driller was, theroughnecks were.
Again, that was the hands-onthing that I wanted, but no jobs
, unfortunately.
So I struggled a little bit andI thought I've had enough.
Now I thought I'll join themilitary.
I was a military kid.
My dad was in the army.
His dad was in the army.
So what's the coolest thing Ican do in the military?
(03:47):
I'll join the marines via beingaccepted into navy.
I finally got in the marines.
There was me passed out fromlimston with my green berry.
My second lieutenant, lloyd,went up to four or five commando
in scotland.
And they just come back fromthe gulf war first gulf I
suppose.
In some ways I missed out theopportunity to go out to the
Gulf and be part of that FirstWar.
(04:08):
These guys had just come back,so it was a party really for
them coming back.
And then we went on to go toNorway for Arctic Warfare
training, to Brunei for JungleWarfare training, but at the end
of the two years my sort ofprobation, if you like I'd not
made the grade and I had realproblems with that for a long
time.
I think it was at this pointI'd bumped into an ex-bootneck
and he was in the fire serviceand he said Steve joined the
(04:29):
fire service and again not beenon my radar at all.
So I'll give it a go.
And I think back then this wasearly nineties being a sort of a
young white ex-military, therewas an advantage, I guess, to
this.
So I got in and I got in quiteeasily and I must admit I mean,
for all the things that I feltI'd not achieved up until that
point, the geology degree hadnot really paid for itself.
(04:51):
The military had not reallyworked out.
I was now in the fire service.
I loved it, I absolutely lovedit.
It was challenging, it wasinteresting, it was busy.
I mean in the early nineties inManchester it was busy.
I was moved around quite a lot.
I was able to draw on myexperience in the Marines and my
education, if you like, to dothe exams quite quickly.
So I went through the promotionprocess quite quickly.
(05:12):
I found myself working in chargeof crews and I got up to the
old fashioned station officerlevel.
Then they changed it from rankto role to watch manager and I
always had this sense of I'vebeen really lucky.
Every single station I go to,lucky.
Every single station I go to,every single crew I go to, it's
been great.
All the information, all thetalk about they're going to be a
real challenge to work with.
No, no, it was great.
I really, really enjoyed it andit took me a long time to give
myself a bit of a pat on theback say it's the way you
(05:34):
approach people, the way youdeal with people we'll talk
about relationship building,maybe in a bit but the way you
build relationships with thosepeople who are going to support
you through your decision-makingthe bit where you've really got
to show your mettle, if youlike.
It took me a while to givemyself a pat on the back.
Anyway, I was loving it, reallyloving it, and for me, it was
the best job watch manager inthe fire service and we were
doing stuff under the radar,which was really cool.
(05:54):
A couple of things thathappened.
So we lost a firefighter in2013, and I bullied him away
onto the review of thesignificant event, if you like,
because he was a friend of mine.
I was on duty that night.
It was going off over the radio, we were out and about covering
somewhere and this was going on.
At the time it really hit homeand I got involved with this
emergency the breathingapparatus, emergency teams and
(06:17):
the Mayday thing.
We didn't have anythingproperly in place at the time.
We'd had on paper emergencyteams, but it wasn't really
functional it place at the time.
We'd had on paper emergencyteams, but it wasn't really
functional.
It wasn't really practical.
We practiced it but it didn'twork.
So I got involved in that and Iwas looking for inspiration and
I use this all the time now.
Still go online and theAmericans are fantastic at
posting stuff.
They speak our language,they're really upfront about
(06:38):
their successes but also theirfailures and how they go about
it.
I was using stuff that I waspicking up from there and I was
trying to promote it across theorganization, not really getting
anywhere At this point.
I'd had a really positiverelationship with my crew and we
were practicing stuff under theradar and I was sharing stuff
locally about rescue slings,about how to bail out of
buildings if you're on your ownthe whole Mayday, fire ground,
(06:58):
emergency messages, anyway, atsome point it gets recognized
and it's in place now.
I guess that was a realpositive for me.
But more and more I was becominga bit disillusioned with what
was going on in the fire service.
I had a go-up promotion.
It hadn't worked out.
Maybe my face didn't fit.
I mean, I used to thinkprobably, you know, is it
because I'm just tooargumentative and opinionated
and whatever else?
And people would say yes, andsome people say you're
(07:20):
passionate about your job, youenjoy your job, you care about
people.
So it didn't fit.
So I stuck with it.
But it was beginning to affect,if you like, the way I was
treating my crew.
I was getting a little bitcheesed off with stuff.
It was not her fault, it wasall in me.
One of my one of my mates saidlook, steve, there's a job
advertisement here for a fireinvestigation.
This would be right up yourstreet.
(07:40):
You'll love this.
And what was?
Listen, I know nepotism issupposed to be a bit of a dirty
word, but I think if it's upfront and out in the open and
you know who you're impressingand you're transparent about it
and you have someone there tosort of champion your case.
The guy who was in charge of thefire investigation team was a
guy joined with ex-rafirefighter.
I basically sort of schmoozedhim, said what do I need to do?
I got in, I got the job, thatpoint.
(08:02):
It was a small team still.
There was only four full-timefire investigators.
They were working days only atthe time They'd come off the
24-7 rotor.
We had a police constable inthe team as well.
I loved it, I absolutely lovedit.
I did ask my mate, head of theteam, sometime afterwards,
before he left and retired and Isaid do you think I'm doing
okay?
Bless him.
(08:22):
You're born for this, steve.
Your enthusiasm, your curiosity, your ability to constantly ask
the right questions, you're notgiving up.
You don't mind if people get abit cheesed off with you, but
you'll push and push until youget so far.
And your ability to learn andretain information said no, it
was really complimentary thatyou made the right decision.
So I think that's where I gotto within fire investigation and
(08:45):
, yeah, retired end of Januaryof this year.
Didn't really see any way ofstaying involved.
To be honest, I think I'd cometo the end of my pensionable
time, if you like.
So the pension sat therewaiting to be taken, but no
option to stay on, reallycertainly in the fire service.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I don't think I had the network within private
sector to have thoseconversations outside, so I left
and moved on yeah, okay, andjust picking up on a couple of
bits there, I think you'vetouched on the military and, I
think, bootnecks, which ismarines, for those who don't
know what.
I think I've worked with quitea few marines and my dad was in
the navy as well and I think youare tend to be paras.
(09:22):
Marines tend to be can do,let's tend to be can-do, let's
crack on.
I worked with a guy in Trinidadand Tobago who was an ex-Marine
and he was just constantly atthe bit, I think, rather than
say that you're driven andconstantly at the bit and you
just want to crack on with thejob, and I think that's a
fantastic thing and I thinkthat's probably what's come
across.
And I think you touched on theomnipotence of it.
I've had a number of sponsors.
(09:43):
I would call them sponsorsbecause they saw something in me
.
They saw something that I waswilling.
Why would you go for someonewho wasn't particularly
passionate or interested, asopposed to someone who is
interested and wants to, as you,and I might say crack on with
it, let's get on with it, let'smake this happen, type thing?
So I think your militarybackground there has obviously
served you very well and it'sinteresting there as well.
(10:04):
I picked up on about the USthing, about American
firefighters and stuff.
They are very do celebratetheir successes but, as you said
, I hadn't really thought aboutthat until now.
It's also they're quite openand honest about if a
firefighter loses their life.
They're very open and honestabout that and why it's happened
in order to prevent it, and Ithink they're a bit more you
said.
I think you're quite rightthere.
(10:25):
They've kind of opened up, gotan open sort of mindset on that.
Now you and I met on a job thatwas in Manchester.
I was on the private sector atthat time.
I was quite new into theprivate sector, having come from
the public sector, and you andI met because you were the FI on
that job and I was a privatesector one and we kind of got
together and we ended up doing acouple of interviews and do you
(10:46):
just want to take us through?
We had a quick chat offline.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I thought let's bring up in here as well talk about
relationships and relationshipbuilding between the public and
the private yeah, to be fair,mike, I don't remember the
specifics of the job, but I doremember meeting you and having
a chat, and I think it was oneof the first times that I as the
fire, fire investigator and Imust have been relatively still
new in the job by this stage aswell it was the first time that
I had the opportunity oroccasion to meet with someone
(11:10):
from the private sector.
I was quite nervous about thisbecause I wasn't sure really
what my status was.
I'm working for the fireservice.
Most of my work was for thepolice or even for the
regulatory body, so theenforcement team for fire.
So I wasn't quite sure reallyhow much I was supposed to share
with all this stuff, whether itwas supposed to be some judice
or anything like that.
But I had a chat with my bossat the time.
(11:33):
He said no, crack on.
I don't think there was anycriminality at this stage that
was implicated in it.
You made me feel reallycomfortable and it was a
conversation, not an inquisition, and I think what you did was
set the tone for my futurerelationships with those of you,
those of your colleagues inprivate sector, and I want to
think, I want to believe that Ihave a really positive or I had
a really positive relationshipwith those of you in the
insurance industry and I knowone of your previous guests had
(11:55):
said sometime that fire serviceput blocks on opportunities to
speak to whether it's the fireinvestigator or the incident
commander.
I was very open about this,maybe sort of again under the
radar a little bit, but I wouldalways have a chat.
I wouldn't necessarily say thisis on the record sort of stuff,
but we'll have a chat about itand if there's anything I can
find out, anything I can help.
So long as it wasn't police-led, as long as it wasn't, I was
going to compromise aprosecution or anything like
(12:17):
that no-transcript.
(12:50):
And then you engage with someoneelse like the CSI and then all
of a sudden you've got anotherpair of eyes and the two of you
are working sort of together.
I mean their experience oflooking for stuff and looking at
stuff and seeing through whatthere is there, to be fair, some
of the challenges they face intheir other aspects of work.
I was always very humbled to beworking with the CSIs.
And then coming back to privatesector, I remember when we were
(13:14):
doing sort of jobs that weren'tfor the cops that weren't for
the coroner and it was sort ofcommercial stuff or insurance
claims and whatever else.
I'd always feel a little bitgutted that the private sector
guys were taking the plaudits.
They were getting paid a bigbox, I thought, and they were
getting all the plaudits forcoming up with the answer and
all that sort of stuff becauseit was big money, big insurance
claims or whatever else.
I remember having a bit of aconversation with somebody who
(13:39):
said look, steve, we can't do itwithout you.
You're first on the scene andthat the evidence and the
information that's fresh.
You guys turn up maybesometimes a week, sometimes
weeks afterwards, but be yourfirst out.
And he said we can't do itwithout you.
The information you gather, theinsight that you have, the
opinions that you create, wecan't do without you.
And I started using that analogythat I'm the slightly
(13:59):
inappropriate looking johnrobertson down the left wing and
brian club's nottingham forestside who who's basically
dazzling the defenders.
I put the cross in and TrevorFrancis gets the goal and he
gets the golden boot and he'sthe hero, whatever else.
But I've got the assist and Ithought, yeah, I can walk away
with that, I can take that, johnRobertson yeah, my hero.
So relationships mate.
It served me well whether I wasas a watch manager on station
(14:21):
when I, during a brief time, wasin the Marines.
So it's about relationshipbuilding and if you haven't got
those relationships and youdon't foster those relationships
, then you can't do your job andit was really apparent doing my
fire investigation stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and I think you kind of hit the nail on the
head there.
When you and I first met fordisclosure, I feel like I was
finding my way in the privatesector because I hadn't been
long outside of the publicsector and I knew how to act
within the public sector.
You and I having a chat policeto fire would be no barrier, no
issue whatsoever.
In fact I would probably bethere at the scene with you and
(14:55):
we would have that relationship.
We would have been to manyscenes before Manchester's not
my area.
Moving into the private sector,I was a bit like a fish out of
water because things were in thepolice.
(15:17):
It's kind of full disclosure.
There's no hiding of anything,the facts and that's the way it
is and that's the way it shouldbe.
In the first attendant crewsthey might have vital
information.
I did a murder inquiry on thedefense in glasgow.
It was really the first twofirefighters that went in and
made statements to the fact thatthey went to left and they went
(15:37):
right and they went into acertain area, not getting too
much into it.
But it was their statementsreally, and had I not had those
statements, had not informationavailable to me, I probably
would have come up with a verydifferent area of origin and
stuff.
So I think that's vital.
Yeah, I think it's incrediblyimportant about relationships
and I've never had a badexperience, either in the public
(15:59):
sector or the private sector,in relation to fire service FIs,
in that if you ring them, ifyou're able to find hold of them
, there are some policydecisions.
For example, there are a coupleof fire services who obviously
have a policy decision thatthey've told their FIs that
they're not to speak to privatesector or some fire services
obviously charging for yourreports and all that sort of
(16:19):
stuff, and that's fair enough.
That's absolutely fair enoughbecause you're a public sector
being funded by a taxpayer, noproblem.
But just that conversation, thenumerous times that I've had
something really cleared up very, very quickly or had vital
information from a fire serviceFI, because you tend to be there
on the day.
If you're not there on the day,you're there in the early hours
the next day.
(16:39):
As I say, you get thatinformation from the crews,
speak to the crews, youinterview the crews, you get
their statements, etc.
Etc.
So I think it's absolutelyinvaluable and it's all about
relationships.
So hopefully that's what thispodcast is doing is trying to
build relationships and say thatreality is public sector,
private sector, having worked inboth camps, we're after the
same thing.
(16:59):
It's sometimes different, butwe are fundamentally after the
same thing.
But yeah, I've never had a badexperience yet.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
As public service investigators, we learn so much
from private sector.
I mean, the private sector tendto be the engineers, the
chemists, the electricians, thepeople with the specialist
backgrounds and stuff like that,and public service
investigators you tend to beplucked from the fire crews you
haven't got.
Maybe the education I'm a bigfan of.
Experience is as important, ifnot more important than
education.
I'm a big fan of.
Experience is as important, ifnot more important than
education.
I was always very keen at allthe things that I learned.
(17:29):
When I was working with some ofthe insurance point
investigators, I had anobligation to pay back.
It was my responsibility.
If they rang me, we'd talkbecause I owed them something,
because they were teaching meall the time.
I was learning from them,because they were specialists in
their role.
I think it was critical thatyeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I think that's vital is that if it's a two-way street
then it works from public toprivate and private to public.
There are a few that haveworked many, many years ago not
recently, but many, many yearsago in the public sector.
I've come across individualsworking for private firms who
think they're cut above.
Really, I think they're a bitspecial because they've got a
PhD from Cambridge or Oxford orsomething like that.
(18:06):
I'm 100% agree with you and I'mnot saying these aren't clever
people, but when it comes tointerviewing witnesses, when it
comes to the investigativemindset, when it comes to
relationships and being able tospeak to people, or even when it
just comes to pure exposure tothe practicalities of it, very
often sometimes in the past notso much now, because it's much,
(18:26):
much better but that kind ofknowledge has been a bit bit
lacking.
I think, as long as there's arelationship there and there is
that share of information, Iremember going to fire stations
bringing so you'd be amazed whata packet of bourbons, some
digestives get.
You take some biscuits for thelads and for the crews and stuff
, and next time you see them ata fire scene then that
relationship's already kind ofthere.
(18:47):
So, yeah, thoroughly encouragepeople to reach out on both
sides, really obviously beguided by your services policy
on both fronts, but I don'tthink there's any reason not to
talk as long as you'reprofessional and, as you quite
rightly say, if it's a criminalmatter, then obviously things
have to be kept to a certaindegree.
But, steve, take me through afire scene investigation, as you
(19:07):
would do it.
Take me through it.
We had a quick chat before andyou've come up with some really
top tips, I think.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So just take me through how you would do it,
we'll pick up from there okay,like I say, most of our work in
our fire investigation was forthe police.
Well, we'll do it, as this is asuspected arson, so it comes in
from the crews.
They obviously identifysomething that they're concerned
about, they raise the suspicionthat could be arson, so we're
then notified about it.
Crime scene investigators don'twant to come out at night time,
(19:32):
so the scene's held maybe bypolice or community support
officers and one of us.
We arrange the meet the nextmorning, always quite keen on
getting there a little bit early.
You turn up, introduce yourselfto whoever's managing the scene
.
I was always ever keen,circumstances permitting, so,
depending on the actualcondition of the fire scene.
So, team, circumstancespermitting, so, depending on the
actual condition of the firescene.
So let's assume it's domesticproperty, suspicion of arson,
stuff like that.
I'd want to have a look around,I want to go through it and if
(19:54):
the CSI is there I say listen,let's walk it through, walk it
through.
I used to call it, my hands inmy pockets, walkthrough.
I'm not touching anything, I'mnot disturbing anything, but I'm
just getting be looking forwhat I'm going to be expecting
to have to do.
Can I be able to identify myroom of origin, let alone with a
floor or anything like that.
Is there stuff there that I cansee now?
(20:14):
And we'd have this conversationCSI myself.
This is going to be important.
This is where we're going to belooking.
These are the sort of thingswe'll be looking at.
So you've got that sense of thescale of what you're about to
do before you actually startwork and then you step outside.
I step outside then and I starthaving a bit of a think about
it.
Csi goes in there, takes theirfirst set of photographs before
we've disturbed anything.
(20:38):
I'm very much keen to gatherinformation at any point, from
anywhere, and just make sureI've got it all.
And I know there's concernsabout cognitive bias and being
led down a particular pathway.
I hoped that I was always awareof information that might sort
of distract me or mightcontaminate my thought process,
but if I don't capture thatinformation now, I might never
capture it.
It might be forgotten.
In a moment when you're on yourhands and knees sort of
excavating a particular area,that information is lost.
(20:59):
So I'll capture everything andthen I'll use that later on.
And I know that it was alwaysthere with the origin and cause.
Origin and cause.
That's our job, origin andcause.
And I thought, well, hang on aminute.
No, I remember listening to someguy from ATF, american Alcohol,
tobacco and Firearms FireInvestigator, and he was part of
a panel and I think it said theNFPA 921 panel, whatever else,
and he kept talking about origin, cause and circumstances.
(21:20):
And I thought, yeah, I likethat.
No-transcript.
(22:10):
I'm thinking, right, okay, I'vegot something here that looks
right.
I'm testing it with all theinformation I've got.
Here's something bits missingand I want some more.
And of course, I talk out loud,I talk to myself and I know
you've asked some of your otherguests about gadgets and top
tips and whatever else.
No-transcript guy and talkthrough it.
(22:37):
But one of the comments he'smade is that your case notes are
illegible.
I think faster than I can write, my handwriting is illegible.
I looked at the case notes andI said, yeah, you're right, I
can't read what I've writtenhere.
This is a challenge for me.
So I started thinking about well, there's got to be an
alternative way to take notes.
That's going to be easy for me.
And of course, you take a pieceof paper and a pen into a fire
(22:57):
scene.
It's dirty, it's wet, it'scontaminated.
It's only ever going to look amess.
So I started using my phone andI started not dictating it,
getting a dictation, but you canget the speech to text and on
my iPhone it was alreadyinstalled.
So the work phone.
So I started talking to myphone and of course it's great
because you can take pictures,it's easy to wipe down
(23:18):
afterwards and you're talking toit.
So I started talking out loud.
Not only was the CSI then partof the conversation, because I
was talking to him or her andgetting some validation for
something I would say or doesthis make sense but it was also
being captured as my scene notesand it was legible.
It might not always pick up theword or there'll be a phrase
that might not come out right,and it's interesting when you
read back how you speak.
(23:39):
It's kind of strange.
But anyway, it was all alwaysbeing captured and then I could
go and edit.
I can write my clean notesafterwards.
I don't know if you've heardthis, but Steve Peters, the
Chimp Paradox.
He came to our fire service, wewere talking about mental
health and wellbeing and stufflike that.
So I got my cruise there and hewas talking about speech
therapies.
Talking therapies are reallyhelpful because the way you
process information.
You're not doing it at the heatof the moment, you're not doing
(24:01):
it with emotion.
You'd be talking logically.
As I was talking, I waslistening to myself as well as
recording it.
I could see it would make senseso I could see where the issues
were.
So again, yeah, my idea waswe'd go into the scene before we
started doing an excavation.
We'd have a walk around and seewhat we could see.
I have a look around, see whatthere was, but I'll be talking
to myself, I'll be talking tothe csi, but I'll be recording
all of it on my phone with aview to then capturing that
(24:21):
again on my case notes when Igot in the car and would write
it up.
Then that was it really.
And then my first experience onmy own working with a csi csi
came in and she took thephotographs and she said, right,
I'm done now.
And I thought, right, okay,well, thanks very much.
Yeah, off you go.
It didn't occur to me, ofcourse, at this point that hang
on to me csi was supposed to bethere with me all the way
(24:43):
through the excavation tohighlight some, so I'd really
messed up at that point.
It was a steep learning curveabout, not that I'm in charge,
but I'm sort of leading thejoint investigation, because I'm
the one who's basicallyexcavating, uncovering,
identifying and then opiningabout some of the burn patterns
or whatever else, and the CSI isthere validating it, but also
(25:03):
then recovering items, artifacts, the way that they have to.
So I've completely messed upthat first investigation by
letting it go with just a suiteof photographs and that was it
just to chip in there, steve, Ithink can only plead to csis.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Really, I think the things have changed slightly,
but I think you get too tight tocsi.
You get those who are reallyinterested in fire, obviously
like myself, and then those whohate it because it's dirty and
you've got to be fairly robust.
It can be cold, it can be wet,it can be hot, etc.
Etc.
So it's very different than aburglary scene, for example.
It's very different than amurder scene or a rape scene,
because you've got differentchallenges.
(25:37):
But if I can plea, if you like,I'm least person to ever
criticize csis because, asyou've kind of highlighted, it
is a very difficult role.
But do take more photographsbecause, as I say, I've reviewed
a few jobs and had a few morephotographs during the
excavation and as things arediscovered should be a
sequential thing and it'sinteresting that you walk
(25:58):
through the job and have a look.
I do exactly the same because Ithink sometimes I've seen FIs
and CSIs.
You go in initially with thecamera and they only see what's
in the lens.
It's only a limited sort ofviewpoint.
I would encourage people to dothat initial walkthrough and
assess, as you quite rightlysaid, see what beast you've got
to sort of become and how longyou're going to be there.
Is it massive fire?
(26:18):
Is it very simple fire?
But yeah, I think if I canappeal to anyone who's listening
, just don't be afraid withdigital.
When I started my csi career, wewet film.
I had to change every 30.
If you were lucky you get 32out of a roll of film and now
there's no limit.
You can take thousands, tens ofthousands of photographs on
some of the SD cards.
Don't be afraid to photographand photograph, and photograph,
(26:41):
and do stay with the FI.
Do stay right to the very endand don't forget also to do
things like even in the roadoutside, for somebody says they
saw somebody running out of this.
Is that physically possiblefrom that vantage point?
Because witnesses can be wrong.
Don't be afraid to do up anddown the streets around the
backs, etc.
Etc.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Not just starting at the house, as my confidence grew
again.
Because, back to relationshipbuilding, you get to know the
csi's, you get with them.
I won't have a bad word saidagainst them.
I mean they were amazing,amazing people to work with and,
as I said before, I was alwayshumbled to meet them and get to
know them and it was great sortof working with the same ones
time and again, fabulous.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I know that you want to talk sort of about tier one,
tier two training.
I'll let you crack on with that.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I've got about that as well, but I'll let you crack
on with that.
Okay, it was quite apparent,and I think partly it was
spurred on by I would get phonecalls from your peers and say
I'd like to talk to you aboutthis particular job and I'd say,
well, none of us went on, thefire investigation team went, so
we didn't have that level ofinsight.
Let me have a look, see what Icould find on the incident
recording system, the ukdatabase of all the fires that
we attend, and there's always anopinion at the end of it.
But it's a bit of a moot pointreally how useful that opinion
is.
I mean, the best I can say isthe law of large numbers.
(27:51):
It's likely to be overall,statistically reasonably correct
.
But specifically, you readsomething in this sort of free
text box on this incident reportand say, well, this is all I've
got.
We don't teach our crew andwatch managers or even our
firefighters any fireinvestigation.
I remember when I was on thefire engines I didn't get any
fire investigation training.
It was usually common sense.
And listen, I fell foul of this.
(28:13):
When you turn up to a job andyou get a bit confused, you
think, well, it didn't occur tome to call the fire
investigation team out.
It just wasn't a thing,particularly so I'd say.
I think it's probablyelectrical and we're right
electrical on the IRS failing todo my job properly and I
(28:34):
thought, well, I've got toaddress this.
Let's see if we can deliversome fire investigation training
across the board.
So there's a few of us in theteam we got together.
A lot of fire service trainingnow is online, which I have
issues with, I think.
But this probably was one ofthose things that maybe was
appropriate for online learning.
You could write a PowerPointand you could do some video
presentations and stuff likethat, and it was an introduction
to fire investigation.
So we did this online learningand basically the rationale was
we only want you, the fire crews, to do basic fire investigation
(28:55):
.
It's got to be simple, it's gotto be straightforward and it's
got to be fairly obvious.
There's a few trigger pointshere.
If you can gather someinformation for us so witnesses
or casualty information that'suseful for statistical purposes
and further analysis.
Here's a list of probably themost likely causes of accidental
fires in private dwellinghouses.
So this is sort of your list ofthings to look at.
(29:15):
But if you've got any suspicionforced entry, multiple seats of
fire, smell of ignitable right,you elevate it and you escalate
it to us to investigate.
So we were trying to introducea little bit of learning, a
little bit of understanding, alittle bit of what the value of
the fire investigation was.
So they were invested in it.
But also those trigger pointsescalated to us we need to be
involved in whatever.
(29:35):
It went really well.
Actually, we do a fewpresentations.
I think following lockdown wecould do a video presentation,
if you like, and then share itagain and again.
So that was quite a useful toolfor us, rather than visiting
individual stations and justtalking to small crews.
And then, of course, you'd askthe crew to hang around at the
job.
So if you were there whilstthey would simultaneously
firefight and then you say,listen, do you mind giving us a
(29:56):
lift, you could almost standback and orchestrate the
excavation sensitively if youlike, but you teach them at the
same time.
So you deliver that little bitof learning while they were
doing it.
And they were interested, theygot it.
That worked really well.
And then I thought how do wecapture the fact that they are
now doing this little bit ofinvestigation work?
I asked the question can wedevelop an app?
And we've got these demountableMDTs, mobile data terminals.
(30:19):
They're basically sort of largeiPads, I guess, and they were
ostensibly being used for thesafe and well visits to gather
information about individualhouses and smoke alarm visits
and stuff like this.
But I said, well, can't we putsomething on there which
basically is a process forsimple tier one investigations,
whereby you turn up, you've gotthe incident number and the
address in there, and then yournext page are there any
(30:41):
casualties?
Are there any witnesses?
And you have to do somethingpositive, yes or no.
Next page can you identify theroom of origin?
And again, based on the bit oflearning they've done online the
idea of you moving from leastdamage to worst damage, highest
point to lowest point, that sortof philosophy can you identify
the room of origin, the area oforigin?
And then is there sort of adrop down menu of some of the
most common things.
(31:02):
Might it be one of these?
Can you eliminate everythingelse?
Is it likely to be that?
Always give them an opportunity, a bit of free text, just in
case it's one of them, sort ofglass monstrosities that people
believe on their windowsill thatthe light reflects through, and
stuff like Give them thatlittle bit of a free text
opportunity and then anythingelse they want to add to it, and
then take some photographs andwhat we were finding.
(31:22):
And it was a bit of a challengeto start with, because it's a
bit of extra work, a bit ofextra admin for the crews to do,
and I'm always minded that'snot what I'm trying to do.
We designed it.
It was ergonomic enough forthem to use.
It was a five or 10 minute jobbecause we weren't really asking
them to do anything too complex.
They'd already gone through theinvestigative process.
But just record it for me nowyou could have the incident
commander there walking throughand basically have their scribe
(31:44):
who was filling it in for them.
But we now have a record of aprocess they'd followed and some
photographs.
So, for instance, if you ringme up and say, steve, have you
been to a job or whatever else,no, but I know someone who has
and I could find thisinformation, here's a few
photographs.
This is why they think this.
It might not always be right,it was just their impression,
(32:07):
but you've now got a record thatdidn't exist previously.
So that took off.
Beginning of last year we hadsort of mixed reviews to start
with, but more and more itgained traction and I think it's
in place now.
It's a great facility and I'msort of minded that I'm
listening to Peter Mancy's talkwith you his firms thing Well,
I'd never of minded that I'mlistening to Peter Mancy's talk
(32:27):
with you.
You know his firms thing well,I've never heard of that before.
About the process thing, it'ssimilar in style.
If you like a process.
I suppose there's an irony forme.
I'm not a particularly processdriven person.
I do like this idea.
You know, person process equalsoutcome.
You can take the process out ofit.
If you've got the right person,you're always going to get a
good outcome.
But if you you haven't got theright person, it doesn't matter
how good the process is.
It's not a fine investigationby numbers.
That's not how I see this.
But in this particular incident, a tier one investigation,
(32:49):
there is a sort of I supposeloosely investigation by numbers
.
There is a process you canfollow.
It's supposed to be simple andstraightforward.
So that's my take on the tierone investigations and the app
that we developed.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, sure, I mean I think I was talking to McFalls
from New South Wales thismorning actually on another part
recording another episode.
They've also developed a verysimilar app to what you
described, and I wasn't aware ofPete Mancy's app either, but I
think it's all of a similar ilkand it's all of a similar line.
In the police we would havealmost an eight memoir in front
of our crime scene logbooks,crime scene managers logbooks,
(33:21):
just to check, sort of tick theboxes and we had a pacific one
for fire.
There would be things like justto make sure you've covered it.
But I think you're absolutelyright, just ticking boxes
doesn't make you a goodinvestigator and it's often
thinking outside the boxsometimes and putting yourself
in the shoes of an arsonist orto understand how they might
have gone about things or whythey might have done things the
(33:42):
way they have done, if there'sevidence to support that.
But and I just wanted to comeback, steve we're just getting
into sort of the cognitive biasstuff and I think there seems to
be a bit of a thing aboutforensics in general where we're
all cognitively, we're all verybiased at this moment in time,
which I don't believe.
I know there's certainacademics out there saying we've
got this bias already built in.
I agree there are certainbiases, but I think if you apply
(34:04):
the scientific method with the921 and all that good stuff and
you follow a process, you needthat information.
If I turn up at a scene,there's a certain amount of
information that you need and ifthe witness has said I saw a
guy running around with a fivelitre petrol container, that's
information you need to know.
We have to be very guardedabout this cognitive bias and be
(34:28):
aware of it 100%.
But at the same time there's amove, there are certain moves to
give us as minimum informationas possible as a structural,
systemic kind of approach, and Ijust don't agree with that.
I just think you need thatinformation.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, but the
idea that you go into a firescene and you start your
examination, your excavation,your recording of the evidence
and the fire damage and whateverelse, and you convince yourself
this is where it is and this isprobably what's happened, and
you think, right there, you go,I've nailed it.
And then someone tells you, oh,there's a bit of information
out here that you might beinterested in, and it completely
turns upside down where you are.
(34:58):
How absurd would that be thatyou're trying to say to somebody
this is what I think, and thensomeone gives you that bit of
information.
Fire scenes by their verynature are destructive, so the
evidence is not all there.
You're trying to put them.
I mean, someone described itonce to me you're trying to put
a jigsaw together with loads ofpieces missing and the more
pieces you can have, whetherit's information from witnesses,
and again one of yourcolleagues, assume nothing,
(35:20):
believe no one, check everything, that ABC sort of approach to
it.
You don't take it as gospel,but you put it to one side and
say, right, that might be usefulto explain something.
And it's about thecircumstances.
How has all this worked?
And if I don't have all of thepicture, or at least most of the
picture.
How can you possibly expect meto come up with a reasoned
opinion that is going towithstand challenge, and I think
(35:41):
that was always, ever myapproach to it.
Whenever I decide that this iswhere I'm at, how can I
challenge myself?
Because I know somebody elsewill want to challenge this?
Where are the weaknesses inwhat I'm saying?
What information is missingbefore I say most likely on my
report?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, just consider.
It just goes against the grainand goes against the whole
process.
If there is a piece ofinformation out there and
someone's not giving thatinformation to you which might
affect your hypothesis, thensurely that is the wrong thing
to do.
There's no doubt about it.
It's for you, as theinvestigator, I think, to come
up with.
And as long as you're robustand as long as you've got
integrity, etc.
Etc.
(36:17):
All those good things, then youwill come to, hopefully, the
right conclusion with theinformation that you're given at
the time.
And if new information comes ina bit later in all of our
statements it always says newinformation comes in I have the
right to change my opinion, tochange, and quite rightly so.
I loved your phrase.
You put a little phrase.
You came up with a littlephrase about know your limits.
I really liked that.
(36:37):
Do you remember what you saidto me?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, I really liked that.
Do you remember what you saidto me?
Yeah, so kind of know yourlimits, but don't limit what you
know.
I mean public service.
I mean this has always been abit of a bugbear for me.
The access to education ispretty limited because budgets
are tight as a resource.
As a fire investigation team, Iwas lucky enough to be part of
a whole time fire investigationteam, so I had no distractions,
no other bolt-ons.
That was all it was.
But still we had a limit towhat we could spend, what we
(36:59):
could look for.
So CPD budgets were prettytight.
Training budgets were tight.
The minimum standard is skillsfor justice level five fire
investigation.
I have issues with thatparticularly, but that's maybe
my personal point of view.
We needed to get fireinvestigators online and working
independently as leads prettyquickly, so we were very keen on
making sure they were taskcompetent before they were
certified competent.
(37:20):
There's all that sort of stuff,but you're going into scenes and
you're going intoinvestigations that may actually
put someone in prison.
With very little experience,very little knowledge.
It was always a case of right.
Okay.
Well, I only know this much.
So I'm only going to beprepared to say this much and
just be a little bit circumspectwith my opinion.
But that doesn't stop youlearning more.
Go and research, go and findout more, because no one's
(37:43):
bringing it to you, no one'ssaying oh Steve, would you like
to go on this really cool course?
It's going to cost a load ofmoney and you're going to be
really well-educated and reallysmart afterwards.
You've got to find this stufffor yourself.
So you go online, you readpapers, you ask people, you
build relationships and again itcomes back to that.
You build a relationship.
You have a hotline to somebody.
It could be yourself, it couldbe someone.
Burgoyne's and Hawkins wereprobably the two big companies
(38:04):
that work in and aroundManchester.
They were always, alwaysgenerous with their time.
Give us a ring, steve, if youneed anything.
Can I just check with you.
This is outside of my comfortzone, but I just need to ask you
a question.
Does this sound plausible?
Does this sound right?
Is there anything else thatcould happen?
You know your limits, so youwrite reports in a way that are
reasonably circumspect.
You're not nailing your colorsto the mast.
(38:24):
If you don't think that's right, you don't stretch.
But equally well, that doesn'tstop you learning about what it
is?
You don't know.
So for the next time, I'velearned a little bit now.
I don't need to be anelectrical engineer to basically
think that, well, I think thecause of this particular fire
was electrical.
I don't need to be a lightingengineer.
I think the lights have causedthis particular problem.
Especially when we're going intoindustrial settings, reach out
for the person.
(38:44):
Who's the specialist, theexpert at the scene?
What's your process?
What is it you make here?
How does it work?
My job really was to identifythe weaknesses, the points of
failure, to say, ah, but thisdoesn't look sound right.
And then you can narrow downand you end up working as a
partnership to basically figureout, probably what's happened.
All of that is all aboutlearning on the job and I tried
(39:05):
endlessly to upskill myself butalso the team training.
Training and it's findingpeople to give us information
that we needed.
And I know that some of yourprevious speakers used the UCLAN
master's course.
We were trying to do it on amodular basis.
There might be nine modules inyour master's fire investigation
course.
If we chop it down into bits,we might be able to say can we
use our CPD budget to maybe dotwo a year and, with a little
(39:28):
bit of accredited prior learningand the skills for justice
level five and the fact thatwe're practitioners.
Can we basically say that if wecan have six modules out of the
nine, you'll give us the degree?
Is it possible to do it on amodule?
It didn't work out,unfortunately.
I saw huge benefits in fireengineering the way fire
interacts with buildings,building design, building
materials and my understandingthen, because, as you know and
(39:50):
as all our fire investigationcolleagues know, if you can't
identify the area of origin, youhaven't got hope in hell of
figuring out what caused it.
So if you can understand howfire interacts with buildings
and materials and whatever, canI do the fire engineering course
?
Can I get on this?
I've already got a degree withUCLan, so they'll give me a
discount and stuff.
No, unfortunately you can't dothis.
So it frustrated me a littlebit that the education wasn't
(40:12):
out there uniformly,consistently across the board
and the skills for justice levelfive was considered minimum
standard for fire investigationin public sector for justice
level five was consideredminimum standard for fire
investigation in public sector.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Sure, I mean, I used to work at cranfield and that's
what I liked about that system.
As private, I know that airaction investigation branch.
When I was there they sent acouple of people on just to do a
pacific module fireinvestigation, explosion
investigation.
I think there's a constant needfor fire investigators to keep
educated.
I don't know if you rememberthe iwi, I see, but the cfi, I
find that incredibly useful.
(40:44):
You can do it as many times asyou like and hopefully end up
towards that CFI.
But again, it's having thatkind of consolidated approach
and which one to go for?
Ife, institute of FireEngineers.
They offer training as well.
But I know the UCAM program.
I know it's very good.
I know the ucam program.
I know it's very good.
I know the cranfield program, Iknow it's very good.
They're not running a full-timemsc at this moment in time but
(41:04):
I think they hope to.
That was certainly theintention when I was there.
It's frustrating, I think.
When you said about the levelone, I've corrected a couple of
level one fire investigations.
I've been called to scene andit's clearly not what it is.
But I think that just comesdown to the training it comes,
comes down to the awareness.
As you quite rightly said, it'snothing to do with anything
other than fire crews are busy,they've got a certain amount of
(41:26):
time.
They might have another call,they might have been pulled from
one area to another area andsomebody else is covering their
area.
I'll be honest as well.
I've always found, when I havecorrected or have contacted the
head of the unit or whatever,they've always said, yeah,
you've had to look at it andredesignate it.
So I think, unfortunately, it'sreally about money and having
the money and the time forpersonnel to go and do that sort
(41:46):
of training.
But hopefully, as I said, I wastalking to mick forbes this
morning and they've got newsouth wales fire investigation
association.
They've got a youtube channeland I've watched their youtube
channel quite a lot.
So there is information outthere.
It's just got to make sure it'scredible.
It's just got to make sure it'scredible.
I mean, you just got to makesure it's from people who know
really what they're talkingabout.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You mentioned explosions.
I mean we don't get manyexplosions, but when we did have
, I mean I was also a little bitstumped.
I mean, one of my firstinvestigations we had an
explosion and very little damage.
Inside the room, the flat, ifyou like.
There was a wrist packet thathad shrunk a little bit, the
bread packet had shrunk a littlebit, but the walls had shifted,
the ceiling had lifted, thewindow was, I think, what on
earth, how has that happened?
(42:24):
And then I related another oneto an aerosol can that was next
to a wall heater that justoverheated and blew.
And again, little things.
A guy had and he got convictedfor this put a camping gas
aerosol can, if you like, on ahob, turned the hob on and we
had the cam sort of buried inthe ceiling and it sort of
pushed out windows.
We had some of it on the cctvfrom next door neighbor and the
(42:44):
windows blowing out.
Whatever else I'm looking atthis.
I'm expecting a bomb and acrater and the damage to be
extensive.
And there was stuff next tothis point of origin, this point
of explosion, that was juststill sat there, did not move
and it took someone to explainto me.
No, think about it as like asail on a sailing ship.
The big surface areas are blownover, small surface area stuff
just doesn't get touched.
(43:05):
And it was revelatory to me allthis sort of stuff and again
it's one of them.
You can then, as a result ofreaching out, speaking to people
with credibility and competenceto explain things to you, it
then starts to make sense andyou can write valid reports
based around that and youunderstand what's going on.
That particular job though itdrove me nuts, because all the
training we do with the crewsabout preserving the scene don't
(43:26):
spoil the scene.
Just remember that.
I want to come and have a lookat it.
I know you've got a firefight.
I know you want to move thingsaround.
I know you want to check forhotspots and whatever else and
you want to make it safe.
But you know that big switchwhere it't throw all the circuit
breakers or whatever.
I remember walking through thatscene when we got there, again
hands in pockets, and I'mthinking right, okay, so it
(43:49):
looks here.
Now we've got this aerosol canthat's embedded in the ceiling
right above the ring on the hob,and the hob that particular
ring is smashed Again.
It's all looking like this andI'm looking at oh, there's the
isolation switch for the cookerand it's in the off position.
All right, okay, who's donethat?
Nobody.
Nobody owned up to it.
I said, well, what am Isupposed to do with this?
Do I believe now that this wasin the off position all the time
and therefore it undermines?
(44:09):
There's certainly the initialhypothesis of what this, what's
happened here, or is somebodytoo scared to say that they
threw the switch?
It's a constant battle tosometimes remind people.
One big switch, they isolateeverything, leave it like that
and we've got a fighting chancesometimes.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
But yeah, that was one of my bugbears, yeah yeah,
it would just take the breakerout on the outside of the big
fuse.
Yeah, exactly right, yeah, yeah,yeah there's a misconception
about some explosions, I thinkrapid defragations, it's a very
rapid frame front.
I've had a couple of jobs whereit's only really tissue paper
and a bit of wallpaper, that'slike come away from the wall,
that's slightly cinched.
Jobs where it's only reallytissue paper and a bit of
wallpaper, that's like come awayfrom the wall.
That's slightly cinched, and soit's very actual little fire.
(44:46):
There, like you say, you canhave a whole wall blown out or a
whole window blown out.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It's an interesting phenomenon one of your previous
guests he was talking about isit in leicester?
The explosion there, so you'vegot the deflagration there, so
it caused the, the damage, itblew things out, the building
was on fire and then you go to agas explosion and the debris
field is massive by comparison,but there's no fire anywhere
because you're right, thedifference between deflagration,
detonation, the flame front andwhatever and this is all part
(45:12):
of this self-learning that youneed to do in public service
that you're constantly lookingto find the answer and then you
realize I don't know enough toactually say something more.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
So I've got to go and do the research myself and I've
got to go and find some answersthere.
Major, serious loss.
I've turned up at the scene.
I think, oh, this could becoming down to electrical.
It looks like electrical.
Then reach out, we would havean electrical engineer in the
firm and get them to give theiropinion WhatsApp it at the time,
facetime it, whatever get theiropinion and if it needs that
(45:56):
expertise, then they would turnup the same day or the following
day or whatever at a laterpoint just to back you up as a
general kind of CSI, a generalFI.
But, yeah, fantastic, I thinkwe've done loads of top tips, to
be honest, with you today,steve.
So I'm not going to ask youthat one, but we're getting
towards our time.
Unfortunately, we could probablycarry on for hours and hours,
but one thing I would say aboutthe training as well, as I think
(46:18):
I've noticed over the years, isthat I remember doing a murder,
2005 and female set lights onthe bed, already deceased, and
the fire crew came in.
They recovered the person'sreport, recovered the female
outside and then they used afull-on hose to spray most of
the contents of the bed up ontothe wall.
We just don't see that anymore.
We see that gas cooling andit's kind of dribbled on.
(46:40):
I remember Andy at HampshirePolice and their arson
investigation, seeing him putout a few bits and pieces of
when we do live burns.
He literally just kind of getsout, takes the hot gases away by
gas cooling and then justdribbles water everywhere.
And I think we're much better atthat and I think fire crews are
hoping that they're stillgetting that kind of education
from a preservation point ofview.
That that they're still gettingthat kind of education from a
(47:01):
preservation point of view,that's good.
I've noticed a big differencein that.
What's next for you, steve?
I know that you're obviouslyretired and what are you up to
now?
Where are you going to now?
What's your plans?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
no, no, I was coming to the end of my time.
I started thinking about whatopportunities there might be.
There was nothing really in thefire service to stay on.
My pension had sort of reacheda point where if I didn't take
it I'd start to be penalizedreally.
I reached out and I studied andwas awarded an mfil where I
studied carbon emissions fromfires in the built environment.
On the basis that I wanted tobe a bit of an environmentalist.
(47:28):
I started looking out forenvironment type jobs and uh,
what job is it?
Within the environment agencyand it's basically starting at
the bottom again.
We're affectionately referredto as river bin men.
I go out as the part of theresponse team just making sure
that some of the overflow gratesand whatever else are clean and
we do river walks and stufflike that.
And I'm still making thattransition from having a job
where I supervised, I managedfire scenes, I managed crews and
(47:51):
whatever else, to now being theguy with a pair of wellies and
a fork and being asked to get inthe river and clean it out.
It's okay, like I say, I'mstill going through that
transition period to see whetheror not it's what I want to do.
So, yeah, that's where I'm at.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
I've worked with you, obviously, and your attitude
and all that good stuff.
So I think there areopportunities there.
There's plenty of ex-fireservice.
We've had plenty on who are nowin the private sector, but I
think it shows who you're outabout and it's active and that
kind of stuff and I think that'sthe sort of people that we are,
we want to be.
You know, I can't imagine beingsat behind a desk all day.
I love being still.
(48:23):
I'm 52 years old now and Iintend to keep going for as long
as I can, still excavating out,because that's the aspect I
really enjoy.
I don't really enjoy thepaperwork side of it.
But I wish you good luck, steve.
As I said, I've worked with you.
I think you're fantastic.
Fella, I wish you the best ofluck and thanks very much for
coming on the podcast.
I really appreciate your time,mate.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
You're a gentleman and it's been an absolute
pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
All right, mate.
Thanks again.
Cheers, you take care and youhey.
Thank you for listening to CSIon Fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our webpage.
Remember factor non-verbal Takecare Good, remember factor
(49:05):
non-verbal take care, goodhunting.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I hope to see you on the next one.
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 the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Welcome to CSI.
(00:25):
This is episode 16.
I've got a fantastic guesttoday.
I've got Steve Lloyd On fulldisclosure.
I first met Steve, I think itwas September 2019.
Well, the actual job that wemet on, or the job that we were
concerned with, was in 23rd ofSeptember.
I remember that because it wasmy birthday.
So, yeah, that's when we firstmet Steve.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks very much for coming on.
(00:46):
As I've already briefed you up,really, I'll let you introduce
yourself and just go throughyour background and how you've
ended up on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hi, mike, I know it's morning here and it's kind of
lunchtime where you are, butprivileged to be here.
Thanks for the invite.
Yeah, steve Lloyd, I neverreally thought about fire
investigation or even fireservice actually as my career
ambition.
I was an army child movingaround a little bit when I was
younger and I got sent toboarding school and, to be fair,
it was a great experience forme, give me stability.
I think my education benefitedas a result of that.
(01:17):
I mean, it's not something Iwould advocate for my children,
I haven't done that, but anywayit was good for me.
I met somebody there one of thetutors and got me into thinking
about geology as a career andwho'd have thought, sort of
coming back all the way around,that stratigraphy, excavation,
stuff like that would be partand parcel of my ultimate career
choice.
But then it was about geologyand I was fascinated by the
(01:38):
whole idea of geology,oceanography as well.
I went on to polytechnic.
I wasn't smart enough to do auniversity, unfortunately at the
time, but Polytechnic was agreat experience for me, very,
very pragmatic course, and thengraduated in 86, did quite well
with my course, but then therewas the recession in the oil
industry, so no jobs.
As a newly graduated geologist,I'm looking around for work.
(01:59):
I ended up working in retail.
A big company local to us inManchester called Macro Did two
years there.
I hated it really and was justconstantly looking around for
something else to do.
It got worse because the guywho was, I suppose, was my busy
oppo at the time.
He got moved on so I was lefton my own and it was quite
apparent then I wasn't reallycut out for retail.
The management said listen,steve, we're going to let you go
(02:20):
.
All right, fine, but before yougo, will you work with the shop
fitters?
They're going to refit thisparticular department and it was
the best experience I'd had fortwo or three months.
They gave me my existingmanagement salary but I was
working with a team of shopfitters and we had a really good
crack and I got the sense ofthis is where I need to be.
I want to be hands-on withstuff rather than sort of sat
behind a desk or behind acomputer.
But anyway, that sort of cameto an end.
(02:41):
I was sort of scratching aroundfor a career move and I looked
at various things.
I applied to join the police,passed a test for that I'm not
sure what it was.
The police inspector comesaround to visit your family,
talk to your family and stufflike that, and it was all going
swimmingly well.
Then I got a phone call from afriend.
This company called ExplorationLogging XLOG were recruiting
geologists.
Get down to Slough, I think itwas.
(03:06):
There's a week induction andyou'll get a job.
Wow, drop the cops and straightdown there.
And I ended up working on afrustratingly enough on an
onshore rig in Nantwich, justdown the road from me.
It wasn't the glamorous sort ofaround the world Indiana Jones
looking for all the gas thingthat I thought it was going to
be.
It was a fairly routine anddull thing, but I ended up
working offshore in the NorthSea on the rigs, doing my bit,
and I was really realizing thenthat as a geologist you're
(03:26):
pretty well at the bottom of thefood chain, and where I wanted
to be was actually on thedrilling floor itself.
Where the driller was, theroughnecks were.
Again, that was the hands-onthing that I wanted, but no jobs
, unfortunately.
So I struggled a little bit andI thought I've had enough.
Now I thought I'll join themilitary.
I was a military kid.
My dad was in the army.
His dad was in the army.
So what's the coolest thing Ican do in the military?
(03:47):
I'll join the marines via beingaccepted into navy.
I finally got in the marines.
There was me passed out fromlimston with my green berry.
My second lieutenant, lloyd,went up to four or five commando
in scotland.
And they just come back fromthe gulf war first gulf I
suppose.
In some ways I missed out theopportunity to go out to the
Gulf and be part of that FirstWar.
(04:08):
These guys had just come back,so it was a party really for
them coming back.
And then we went on to go toNorway for Arctic Warfare
training, to Brunei for JungleWarfare training, but at the end
of the two years my sort ofprobation, if you like I'd not
made the grade and I had realproblems with that for a long
time.
I think it was at this pointI'd bumped into an ex-bootneck
and he was in the fire serviceand he said Steve joined the
(04:29):
fire service and again not beenon my radar at all.
So I'll give it a go.
And I think back then this wasearly nineties being a sort of a
young white ex-military, therewas an advantage, I guess, to
this.
So I got in and I got in quiteeasily and I must admit I mean,
for all the things that I feltI'd not achieved up until that
point, the geology degree hadnot really paid for itself.
(04:51):
The military had not reallyworked out.
I was now in the fire service.
I loved it, I absolutely lovedit.
It was challenging, it wasinteresting, it was busy.
I mean in the early nineties inManchester it was busy.
I was moved around quite a lot.
I was able to draw on myexperience in the Marines and my
education, if you like, to dothe exams quite quickly.
So I went through the promotionprocess quite quickly.
(05:12):
I found myself working in chargeof crews and I got up to the
old fashioned station officerlevel.
Then they changed it from rankto role to watch manager and I
always had this sense of I'vebeen really lucky.
Every single station I go to,lucky.
Every single station I go to,every single crew I go to, it's
been great.
All the information, all thetalk about they're going to be a
real challenge to work with.
No, no, it was great.
I really, really enjoyed it andit took me a long time to give
myself a bit of a pat on theback say it's the way you
(05:34):
approach people, the way youdeal with people we'll talk
about relationship building,maybe in a bit but the way you
build relationships with thosepeople who are going to support
you through your decision-makingthe bit where you've really got
to show your mettle, if youlike.
It took me a while to givemyself a pat on the back.
Anyway, I was loving it, reallyloving it, and for me, it was
the best job watch manager inthe fire service and we were
doing stuff under the radar,which was really cool.
(05:54):
A couple of things thathappened.
So we lost a firefighter in2013, and I bullied him away
onto the review of thesignificant event, if you like,
because he was a friend of mine.
I was on duty that night.
It was going off over the radio, we were out and about covering
somewhere and this was going on.
At the time it really hit homeand I got involved with this
emergency the breathingapparatus, emergency teams and
(06:17):
the Mayday thing.
We didn't have anythingproperly in place at the time.
We'd had on paper emergencyteams, but it wasn't really
functional it place at the time.
We'd had on paper emergencyteams, but it wasn't really
functional.
It wasn't really practical.
We practiced it but it didn'twork.
So I got involved in that and Iwas looking for inspiration and
I use this all the time now.
Still go online and theAmericans are fantastic at
posting stuff.
They speak our language,they're really upfront about
(06:38):
their successes but also theirfailures and how they go about
it.
I was using stuff that I waspicking up from there and I was
trying to promote it across theorganization, not really getting
anywhere At this point.
I'd had a really positiverelationship with my crew and we
were practicing stuff under theradar and I was sharing stuff
locally about rescue slings,about how to bail out of
buildings if you're on your ownthe whole Mayday, fire ground,
(06:58):
emergency messages, anyway, atsome point it gets recognized
and it's in place now.
I guess that was a realpositive for me.
But more and more I was becominga bit disillusioned with what
was going on in the fire service.
I had a go-up promotion.
It hadn't worked out.
Maybe my face didn't fit.
I mean, I used to thinkprobably, you know, is it
because I'm just tooargumentative and opinionated
and whatever else?
And people would say yes, andsome people say you're
(07:20):
passionate about your job, youenjoy your job, you care about
people.
So it didn't fit.
So I stuck with it.
But it was beginning to affect,if you like, the way I was
treating my crew.
I was getting a little bitcheesed off with stuff.
It was not her fault, it wasall in me.
One of my one of my mates saidlook, steve, there's a job
advertisement here for a fireinvestigation.
This would be right up yourstreet.
(07:40):
You'll love this.
And what was?
Listen, I know nepotism issupposed to be a bit of a dirty
word, but I think if it's upfront and out in the open and
you know who you're impressingand you're transparent about it
and you have someone there tosort of champion your case.
The guy who was in charge of thefire investigation team was a
guy joined with ex-rafirefighter.
I basically sort of schmoozedhim, said what do I need to do?
I got in, I got the job, thatpoint.
(08:02):
It was a small team still.
There was only four full-timefire investigators.
They were working days only atthe time They'd come off the
24-7 rotor.
We had a police constable inthe team as well.
I loved it, I absolutely lovedit.
I did ask my mate, head of theteam, sometime afterwards,
before he left and retired and Isaid do you think I'm doing
okay?
Bless him.
(08:22):
You're born for this, steve.
Your enthusiasm, your curiosity, your ability to constantly ask
the right questions, you're notgiving up.
You don't mind if people get abit cheesed off with you, but
you'll push and push until youget so far.
And your ability to learn andretain information said no, it
was really complimentary thatyou made the right decision.
So I think that's where I gotto within fire investigation and
(08:45):
, yeah, retired end of Januaryof this year.
Didn't really see any way ofstaying involved.
To be honest, I think I'd cometo the end of my pensionable
time, if you like.
So the pension sat therewaiting to be taken, but no
option to stay on, reallycertainly in the fire service.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I don't think I had the network within private
sector to have thoseconversations outside, so I left
and moved on yeah, okay, andjust picking up on a couple of
bits there, I think you'vetouched on the military and, I
think, bootnecks, which ismarines, for those who don't
know what.
I think I've worked with quitea few marines and my dad was in
the navy as well and I think youare tend to be paras.
(09:22):
Marines tend to be can do,let's tend to be can-do, let's
crack on.
I worked with a guy in Trinidadand Tobago who was an ex-Marine
and he was just constantly atthe bit, I think, rather than
say that you're driven andconstantly at the bit and you
just want to crack on with thejob, and I think that's a
fantastic thing and I thinkthat's probably what's come
across.
And I think you touched on theomnipotence of it.
I've had a number of sponsors.
(09:43):
I would call them sponsorsbecause they saw something in me
.
They saw something that I waswilling.
Why would you go for someonewho wasn't particularly
passionate or interested, asopposed to someone who is
interested and wants to, as you,and I might say crack on with
it, let's get on with it, let'smake this happen, type thing?
So I think your militarybackground there has obviously
served you very well and it'sinteresting there as well.
(10:04):
I picked up on about the USthing, about American
firefighters and stuff.
They are very do celebratetheir successes but, as you said
, I hadn't really thought aboutthat until now.
It's also they're quite openand honest about if a
firefighter loses their life.
They're very open and honestabout that and why it's happened
in order to prevent it, and Ithink they're a bit more you
said.
I think you're quite rightthere.
(10:25):
They've kind of opened up, gotan open sort of mindset on that.
Now you and I met on a job thatwas in Manchester.
I was on the private sector atthat time.
I was quite new into theprivate sector, having come from
the public sector, and you andI met because you were the FI on
that job and I was a privatesector one and we kind of got
together and we ended up doing acouple of interviews and do you
(10:46):
just want to take us through?
We had a quick chat offline.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I thought let's bring up in here as well talk about
relationships and relationshipbuilding between the public and
the private yeah, to be fair,mike, I don't remember the
specifics of the job, but I doremember meeting you and having
a chat, and I think it was oneof the first times that I as the
fire, fire investigator and Imust have been relatively still
new in the job by this stage aswell it was the first time that
I had the opportunity oroccasion to meet with someone
(11:10):
from the private sector.
I was quite nervous about thisbecause I wasn't sure really
what my status was.
I'm working for the fireservice.
Most of my work was for thepolice or even for the
regulatory body, so theenforcement team for fire.
So I wasn't quite sure reallyhow much I was supposed to share
with all this stuff, whether itwas supposed to be some judice
or anything like that.
But I had a chat with my bossat the time.
(11:33):
He said no, crack on.
I don't think there was anycriminality at this stage that
was implicated in it.
You made me feel reallycomfortable and it was a
conversation, not an inquisition, and I think what you did was
set the tone for my futurerelationships with those of you,
those of your colleagues inprivate sector, and I want to
think, I want to believe that Ihave a really positive or I had
a really positive relationshipwith those of you in the
insurance industry and I knowone of your previous guests had
(11:55):
said sometime that fire serviceput blocks on opportunities to
speak to whether it's the fireinvestigator or the incident
commander.
I was very open about this,maybe sort of again under the
radar a little bit, but I wouldalways have a chat.
I wouldn't necessarily say thisis on the record sort of stuff,
but we'll have a chat about itand if there's anything I can
find out, anything I can help.
So long as it wasn't police-led, as long as it wasn't, I was
going to compromise aprosecution or anything like
(12:17):
that no-transcript.
(12:50):
And then you engage with someoneelse like the CSI and then all
of a sudden you've got anotherpair of eyes and the two of you
are working sort of together.
I mean their experience oflooking for stuff and looking at
stuff and seeing through whatthere is there, to be fair, some
of the challenges they face intheir other aspects of work.
I was always very humbled to beworking with the CSIs.
And then coming back to privatesector, I remember when we were
(13:14):
doing sort of jobs that weren'tfor the cops that weren't for
the coroner and it was sort ofcommercial stuff or insurance
claims and whatever else.
I'd always feel a little bitgutted that the private sector
guys were taking the plaudits.
They were getting paid a bigbox, I thought, and they were
getting all the plaudits forcoming up with the answer and
all that sort of stuff becauseit was big money, big insurance
claims or whatever else.
I remember having a bit of aconversation with somebody who
(13:39):
said look, steve, we can't do itwithout you.
You're first on the scene andthat the evidence and the
information that's fresh.
You guys turn up maybesometimes a week, sometimes
weeks afterwards, but be yourfirst out.
And he said we can't do itwithout you.
The information you gather, theinsight that you have, the
opinions that you create, wecan't do without you.
And I started using that analogythat I'm the slightly
(13:59):
inappropriate looking johnrobertson down the left wing and
brian club's nottingham forestside who who's basically
dazzling the defenders.
I put the cross in and TrevorFrancis gets the goal and he
gets the golden boot and he'sthe hero, whatever else.
But I've got the assist and Ithought, yeah, I can walk away
with that, I can take that, johnRobertson yeah, my hero.
So relationships mate.
It served me well whether I wasas a watch manager on station
(14:21):
when I, during a brief time, wasin the Marines.
So it's about relationshipbuilding and if you haven't got
those relationships and youdon't foster those relationships
, then you can't do your job andit was really apparent doing my
fire investigation stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and I think you kind of hit the nail on the
head there.
When you and I first met fordisclosure, I feel like I was
finding my way in the privatesector because I hadn't been
long outside of the publicsector and I knew how to act
within the public sector.
You and I having a chat policeto fire would be no barrier, no
issue whatsoever.
In fact I would probably bethere at the scene with you and
(14:55):
we would have that relationship.
We would have been to manyscenes before Manchester's not
my area.
Moving into the private sector,I was a bit like a fish out of
water because things were in thepolice.
(15:17):
It's kind of full disclosure.
There's no hiding of anything,the facts and that's the way it
is and that's the way it shouldbe.
In the first attendant crewsthey might have vital
information.
I did a murder inquiry on thedefense in glasgow.
It was really the first twofirefighters that went in and
made statements to the fact thatthey went to left and they went
(15:37):
right and they went into acertain area, not getting too
much into it.
But it was their statementsreally, and had I not had those
statements, had not informationavailable to me, I probably
would have come up with a verydifferent area of origin and
stuff.
So I think that's vital.
Yeah, I think it's incrediblyimportant about relationships
and I've never had a badexperience, either in the public
(15:59):
sector or the private sector,in relation to fire service FIs,
in that if you ring them, ifyou're able to find hold of them
, there are some policydecisions.
For example, there are a coupleof fire services who obviously
have a policy decision thatthey've told their FIs that
they're not to speak to privatesector or some fire services
obviously charging for yourreports and all that sort of
(16:19):
stuff, and that's fair enough.
That's absolutely fair enoughbecause you're a public sector
being funded by a taxpayer, noproblem.
But just that conversation, thenumerous times that I've had
something really cleared up very, very quickly or had vital
information from a fire serviceFI, because you tend to be there
on the day.
If you're not there on the day,you're there in the early hours
the next day.
(16:39):
As I say, you get thatinformation from the crews,
speak to the crews, youinterview the crews, you get
their statements, etc.
Etc.
So I think it's absolutelyinvaluable and it's all about
relationships.
So hopefully that's what thispodcast is doing is trying to
build relationships and say thatreality is public sector,
private sector, having worked inboth camps, we're after the
same thing.
(16:59):
It's sometimes different, butwe are fundamentally after the
same thing.
But yeah, I've never had a badexperience yet.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
As public service investigators, we learn so much
from private sector.
I mean, the private sector tendto be the engineers, the
chemists, the electricians, thepeople with the specialist
backgrounds and stuff like that,and public service
investigators you tend to beplucked from the fire crews you
haven't got.
Maybe the education I'm a bigfan of.
Experience is as important, ifnot more important than
education.
I'm a big fan of.
Experience is as important, ifnot more important than
education.
I was always very keen at allthe things that I learned.
(17:29):
When I was working with some ofthe insurance point
investigators, I had anobligation to pay back.
It was my responsibility.
If they rang me, we'd talkbecause I owed them something,
because they were teaching meall the time.
I was learning from them,because they were specialists in
their role.
I think it was critical thatyeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I think that's vital is that if it's a two-way street
then it works from public toprivate and private to public.
There are a few that haveworked many, many years ago not
recently, but many, many yearsago in the public sector.
I've come across individualsworking for private firms who
think they're cut above.
Really, I think they're a bitspecial because they've got a
PhD from Cambridge or Oxford orsomething like that.
(18:06):
I'm 100% agree with you and I'mnot saying these aren't clever
people, but when it comes tointerviewing witnesses, when it
comes to the investigativemindset, when it comes to
relationships and being able tospeak to people, or even when it
just comes to pure exposure tothe practicalities of it, very
often sometimes in the past notso much now, because it's much,
(18:26):
much better but that kind ofknowledge has been a bit bit
lacking.
I think, as long as there's arelationship there and there is
that share of information, Iremember going to fire stations
bringing so you'd be amazed whata packet of bourbons, some
digestives get.
You take some biscuits for thelads and for the crews and stuff
, and next time you see them ata fire scene then that
relationship's already kind ofthere.
(18:47):
So, yeah, thoroughly encouragepeople to reach out on both
sides, really obviously beguided by your services policy
on both fronts, but I don'tthink there's any reason not to
talk as long as you'reprofessional and, as you quite
rightly say, if it's a criminalmatter, then obviously things
have to be kept to a certaindegree.
But, steve, take me through afire scene investigation, as you
(19:07):
would do it.
Take me through it.
We had a quick chat before andyou've come up with some really
top tips, I think.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So just take me through how you would do it,
we'll pick up from there okay,like I say, most of our work in
our fire investigation was forthe police.
Well, we'll do it, as this is asuspected arson, so it comes in
from the crews.
They obviously identifysomething that they're concerned
about, they raise the suspicionthat could be arson, so we're
then notified about it.
Crime scene investigators don'twant to come out at night time,
(19:32):
so the scene's held maybe bypolice or community support
officers and one of us.
We arrange the meet the nextmorning, always quite keen on
getting there a little bit early.
You turn up, introduce yourselfto whoever's managing the scene
.
I was always ever keen,circumstances permitting, so,
depending on the actualcondition of the fire scene.
So, team, circumstancespermitting, so, depending on the
actual condition of the firescene.
So let's assume it's domesticproperty, suspicion of arson,
stuff like that.
I'd want to have a look around,I want to go through it and if
(19:54):
the CSI is there I say listen,let's walk it through, walk it
through.
I used to call it, my hands inmy pockets, walkthrough.
I'm not touching anything, I'mnot disturbing anything, but I'm
just getting be looking forwhat I'm going to be expecting
to have to do.
Can I be able to identify myroom of origin, let alone with a
floor or anything like that.
Is there stuff there that I cansee now?
(20:14):
And we'd have this conversationCSI myself.
This is going to be important.
This is where we're going to belooking.
These are the sort of thingswe'll be looking at.
So you've got that sense of thescale of what you're about to
do before you actually startwork and then you step outside.
I step outside then and I starthaving a bit of a think about
it.
Csi goes in there, takes theirfirst set of photographs before
we've disturbed anything.
(20:38):
I'm very much keen to gatherinformation at any point, from
anywhere, and just make sureI've got it all.
And I know there's concernsabout cognitive bias and being
led down a particular pathway.
I hoped that I was always awareof information that might sort
of distract me or mightcontaminate my thought process,
but if I don't capture thatinformation now, I might never
capture it.
It might be forgotten.
In a moment when you're on yourhands and knees sort of
excavating a particular area,that information is lost.
(20:59):
So I'll capture everything andthen I'll use that later on.
And I know that it was alwaysthere with the origin and cause.
Origin and cause.
That's our job, origin andcause.
And I thought, well, hang on aminute.
No, I remember listening to someguy from ATF, american Alcohol,
tobacco and Firearms FireInvestigator, and he was part of
a panel and I think it said theNFPA 921 panel, whatever else,
and he kept talking about origin, cause and circumstances.
(21:20):
And I thought, yeah, I likethat.
No-transcript.
(22:10):
I'm thinking, right, okay, I'vegot something here that looks
right.
I'm testing it with all theinformation I've got.
Here's something bits missingand I want some more.
And of course, I talk out loud,I talk to myself and I know
you've asked some of your otherguests about gadgets and top
tips and whatever else.
No-transcript guy and talkthrough it.
(22:37):
But one of the comments he'smade is that your case notes are
illegible.
I think faster than I can write, my handwriting is illegible.
I looked at the case notes andI said, yeah, you're right, I
can't read what I've writtenhere.
This is a challenge for me.
So I started thinking about well, there's got to be an
alternative way to take notes.
That's going to be easy for me.
And of course, you take a pieceof paper and a pen into a fire
(22:57):
scene.
It's dirty, it's wet, it'scontaminated.
It's only ever going to look amess.
So I started using my phone andI started not dictating it,
getting a dictation, but you canget the speech to text and on
my iPhone it was alreadyinstalled.
So the work phone.
So I started talking to myphone and of course it's great
because you can take pictures,it's easy to wipe down
(23:18):
afterwards and you're talking toit.
So I started talking out loud.
Not only was the CSI then partof the conversation, because I
was talking to him or her andgetting some validation for
something I would say or doesthis make sense but it was also
being captured as my scene notesand it was legible.
It might not always pick up theword or there'll be a phrase
that might not come out right,and it's interesting when you
read back how you speak.
(23:39):
It's kind of strange.
But anyway, it was all alwaysbeing captured and then I could
go and edit.
I can write my clean notesafterwards.
I don't know if you've heardthis, but Steve Peters, the
Chimp Paradox.
He came to our fire service, wewere talking about mental
health and wellbeing and stufflike that.
So I got my cruise there and hewas talking about speech
therapies.
Talking therapies are reallyhelpful because the way you
process information.
You're not doing it at the heatof the moment, you're not doing
(24:01):
it with emotion.
You'd be talking logically.
As I was talking, I waslistening to myself as well as
recording it.
I could see it would make senseso I could see where the issues
were.
So again, yeah, my idea waswe'd go into the scene before we
started doing an excavation.
We'd have a walk around and seewhat we could see.
I have a look around, see whatthere was, but I'll be talking
to myself, I'll be talking tothe csi, but I'll be recording
all of it on my phone with aview to then capturing that
(24:21):
again on my case notes when Igot in the car and would write
it up.
Then that was it really.
And then my first experience onmy own working with a csi csi
came in and she took thephotographs and she said, right,
I'm done now.
And I thought, right, okay,well, thanks very much.
Yeah, off you go.
It didn't occur to me, ofcourse, at this point that hang
on to me csi was supposed to bethere with me all the way
(24:43):
through the excavation tohighlight some, so I'd really
messed up at that point.
It was a steep learning curveabout, not that I'm in charge,
but I'm sort of leading thejoint investigation, because I'm
the one who's basicallyexcavating, uncovering,
identifying and then opiningabout some of the burn patterns
or whatever else, and the CSI isthere validating it, but also
(25:03):
then recovering items, artifacts, the way that they have to.
So I've completely messed upthat first investigation by
letting it go with just a suiteof photographs and that was it
just to chip in there, steve, Ithink can only plead to csis.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Really, I think the things have changed slightly,
but I think you get too tight tocsi.
You get those who are reallyinterested in fire, obviously
like myself, and then those whohate it because it's dirty and
you've got to be fairly robust.
It can be cold, it can be wet,it can be hot, etc.
Etc.
So it's very different than aburglary scene, for example.
It's very different than amurder scene or a rape scene,
because you've got differentchallenges.
(25:37):
But if I can plea, if you like,I'm least person to ever
criticize csis because, asyou've kind of highlighted, it
is a very difficult role.
But do take more photographsbecause, as I say, I've reviewed
a few jobs and had a few morephotographs during the
excavation and as things arediscovered should be a
sequential thing and it'sinteresting that you walk
(25:58):
through the job and have a look.
I do exactly the same because Ithink sometimes I've seen FIs
and CSIs.
You go in initially with thecamera and they only see what's
in the lens.
It's only a limited sort ofviewpoint.
I would encourage people to dothat initial walkthrough and
assess, as you quite rightlysaid, see what beast you've got
to sort of become and how longyou're going to be there.
Is it massive fire?
(26:18):
Is it very simple fire?
But yeah, I think if I canappeal to anyone who's listening
, just don't be afraid withdigital.
When I started my csi career, wewet film.
I had to change every 30.
If you were lucky you get 32out of a roll of film and now
there's no limit.
You can take thousands, tens ofthousands of photographs on
some of the SD cards.
Don't be afraid to photographand photograph, and photograph,
(26:41):
and do stay with the FI.
Do stay right to the very endand don't forget also to do
things like even in the roadoutside, for somebody says they
saw somebody running out of this.
Is that physically possiblefrom that vantage point?
Because witnesses can be wrong.
Don't be afraid to do up anddown the streets around the
backs, etc.
Etc.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Not just starting at the house, as my confidence grew
again.
Because, back to relationshipbuilding, you get to know the
csi's, you get with them.
I won't have a bad word saidagainst them.
I mean they were amazing,amazing people to work with and,
as I said before, I was alwayshumbled to meet them and get to
know them and it was great sortof working with the same ones
time and again, fabulous.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I know that you want to talk sort of about tier one,
tier two training.
I'll let you crack on with that.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I've got about that as well, but I'll let you crack
on with that.
Okay, it was quite apparent,and I think partly it was
spurred on by I would get phonecalls from your peers and say
I'd like to talk to you aboutthis particular job and I'd say,
well, none of us went on, thefire investigation team went, so
we didn't have that level ofinsight.
Let me have a look, see what Icould find on the incident
recording system, the ukdatabase of all the fires that
we attend, and there's always anopinion at the end of it.
But it's a bit of a moot pointreally how useful that opinion
is.
I mean, the best I can say isthe law of large numbers.
(27:51):
It's likely to be overall,statistically reasonably correct
.
But specifically, you readsomething in this sort of free
text box on this incident reportand say, well, this is all I've
got.
We don't teach our crew andwatch managers or even our
firefighters any fireinvestigation.
I remember when I was on thefire engines I didn't get any
fire investigation training.
It was usually common sense.
And listen, I fell foul of this.
(28:13):
When you turn up to a job andyou get a bit confused, you
think, well, it didn't occur tome to call the fire
investigation team out.
It just wasn't a thing,particularly so I'd say.
I think it's probablyelectrical and we're right
electrical on the IRS failing todo my job properly and I
(28:34):
thought, well, I've got toaddress this.
Let's see if we can deliversome fire investigation training
across the board.
So there's a few of us in theteam we got together.
A lot of fire service trainingnow is online, which I have
issues with, I think.
But this probably was one ofthose things that maybe was
appropriate for online learning.
You could write a PowerPointand you could do some video
presentations and stuff likethat, and it was an introduction
to fire investigation.
So we did this online learningand basically the rationale was
we only want you, the fire crews, to do basic fire investigation
(28:55):
.
It's got to be simple, it's gotto be straightforward and it's
got to be fairly obvious.
There's a few trigger pointshere.
If you can gather someinformation for us so witnesses
or casualty information that'suseful for statistical purposes
and further analysis.
Here's a list of probably themost likely causes of accidental
fires in private dwellinghouses.
So this is sort of your list ofthings to look at.
(29:15):
But if you've got any suspicionforced entry, multiple seats of
fire, smell of ignitable right,you elevate it and you escalate
it to us to investigate.
So we were trying to introducea little bit of learning, a
little bit of understanding, alittle bit of what the value of
the fire investigation was.
So they were invested in it.
But also those trigger pointsescalated to us we need to be
involved in whatever.
(29:35):
It went really well.
Actually, we do a fewpresentations.
I think following lockdown wecould do a video presentation,
if you like, and then share itagain and again.
So that was quite a useful toolfor us, rather than visiting
individual stations and justtalking to small crews.
And then, of course, you'd askthe crew to hang around at the
job.
So if you were there whilstthey would simultaneously
firefight and then you say,listen, do you mind giving us a
(29:56):
lift, you could almost standback and orchestrate the
excavation sensitively if youlike, but you teach them at the
same time.
So you deliver that little bitof learning while they were
doing it.
And they were interested, theygot it.
That worked really well.
And then I thought how do wecapture the fact that they are
now doing this little bit ofinvestigation work?
I asked the question can wedevelop an app?
And we've got these demountableMDTs, mobile data terminals.
(30:19):
They're basically sort of largeiPads, I guess, and they were
ostensibly being used for thesafe and well visits to gather
information about individualhouses and smoke alarm visits
and stuff like this.
But I said, well, can't we putsomething on there which
basically is a process forsimple tier one investigations,
whereby you turn up, you've gotthe incident number and the
address in there, and then yournext page are there any
(30:41):
casualties?
Are there any witnesses?
And you have to do somethingpositive, yes or no.
Next page can you identify theroom of origin?
And again, based on the bit oflearning they've done online the
idea of you moving from leastdamage to worst damage, highest
point to lowest point, that sortof philosophy can you identify
the room of origin, the area oforigin?
And then is there sort of adrop down menu of some of the
most common things.
(31:02):
Might it be one of these?
Can you eliminate everythingelse?
Is it likely to be that?
Always give them an opportunity, a bit of free text, just in
case it's one of them, sort ofglass monstrosities that people
believe on their windowsill thatthe light reflects through, and
stuff like Give them thatlittle bit of a free text
opportunity and then anythingelse they want to add to it, and
then take some photographs andwhat we were finding.
(31:22):
And it was a bit of a challengeto start with, because it's a
bit of extra work, a bit ofextra admin for the crews to do,
and I'm always minded that'snot what I'm trying to do.
We designed it.
It was ergonomic enough forthem to use.
It was a five or 10 minute jobbecause we weren't really asking
them to do anything too complex.
They'd already gone through theinvestigative process.
But just record it for me nowyou could have the incident
commander there walking throughand basically have their scribe
(31:44):
who was filling it in for them.
But we now have a record of aprocess they'd followed and some
photographs.
So, for instance, if you ringme up and say, steve, have you
been to a job or whatever else,no, but I know someone who has
and I could find thisinformation, here's a few
photographs.
This is why they think this.
It might not always be right,it was just their impression,
(32:07):
but you've now got a record thatdidn't exist previously.
So that took off.
Beginning of last year we hadsort of mixed reviews to start
with, but more and more itgained traction and I think it's
in place now.
It's a great facility and I'msort of minded that I'm
listening to Peter Mancy's talkwith you his firms thing Well,
I'd never of minded that I'mlistening to Peter Mancy's talk
(32:27):
with you.
You know his firms thing well,I've never heard of that before.
About the process thing, it'ssimilar in style.
If you like a process.
I suppose there's an irony forme.
I'm not a particularly processdriven person.
I do like this idea.
You know, person process equalsoutcome.
You can take the process out ofit.
If you've got the right person,you're always going to get a
good outcome.
But if you you haven't got theright person, it doesn't matter
how good the process is.
It's not a fine investigationby numbers.
That's not how I see this.
But in this particular incident, a tier one investigation,
(32:49):
there is a sort of I supposeloosely investigation by numbers
.
There is a process you canfollow.
It's supposed to be simple andstraightforward.
So that's my take on the tierone investigations and the app
that we developed.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, sure, I mean I think I was talking to McFalls
from New South Wales thismorning actually on another part
recording another episode.
They've also developed a verysimilar app to what you
described, and I wasn't aware ofPete Mancy's app either, but I
think it's all of a similar ilkand it's all of a similar line.
In the police we would havealmost an eight memoir in front
of our crime scene logbooks,crime scene managers logbooks,
(33:21):
just to check, sort of tick theboxes and we had a pacific one
for fire.
There would be things like justto make sure you've covered it.
But I think you're absolutelyright, just ticking boxes
doesn't make you a goodinvestigator and it's often
thinking outside the boxsometimes and putting yourself
in the shoes of an arsonist orto understand how they might
have gone about things or whythey might have done things the
(33:42):
way they have done, if there'sevidence to support that.
But and I just wanted to comeback, steve we're just getting
into sort of the cognitive biasstuff and I think there seems to
be a bit of a thing aboutforensics in general where we're
all cognitively, we're all verybiased at this moment in time,
which I don't believe.
I know there's certainacademics out there saying we've
got this bias already built in.
I agree there are certainbiases, but I think if you apply
(34:04):
the scientific method with the921 and all that good stuff and
you follow a process, you needthat information.
If I turn up at a scene,there's a certain amount of
information that you need and ifthe witness has said I saw a
guy running around with a fivelitre petrol container, that's
information you need to know.
We have to be very guardedabout this cognitive bias and be
(34:28):
aware of it 100%.
But at the same time there's amove, there are certain moves to
give us as minimum informationas possible as a structural,
systemic kind of approach, and Ijust don't agree with that.
I just think you need thatinformation.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, but the
idea that you go into a firescene and you start your
examination, your excavation,your recording of the evidence
and the fire damage and whateverelse, and you convince yourself
this is where it is and this isprobably what's happened, and
you think, right there, you go,I've nailed it.
And then someone tells you, oh,there's a bit of information
out here that you might beinterested in, and it completely
turns upside down where you are.
(34:58):
How absurd would that be thatyou're trying to say to somebody
this is what I think, and thensomeone gives you that bit of
information.
Fire scenes by their verynature are destructive, so the
evidence is not all there.
You're trying to put them.
I mean, someone described itonce to me you're trying to put
a jigsaw together with loads ofpieces missing and the more
pieces you can have, whetherit's information from witnesses,
and again one of yourcolleagues, assume nothing,
(35:20):
believe no one, check everything, that ABC sort of approach to
it.
You don't take it as gospel,but you put it to one side and
say, right, that might be usefulto explain something.
And it's about thecircumstances.
How has all this worked?
And if I don't have all of thepicture, or at least most of the
picture.
How can you possibly expect meto come up with a reasoned
opinion that is going towithstand challenge, and I think
(35:41):
that was always, ever myapproach to it.
Whenever I decide that this iswhere I'm at, how can I
challenge myself?
Because I know somebody elsewill want to challenge this?
Where are the weaknesses inwhat I'm saying?
What information is missingbefore I say most likely on my
report?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, just consider.
It just goes against the grainand goes against the whole
process.
If there is a piece ofinformation out there and
someone's not giving thatinformation to you which might
affect your hypothesis, thensurely that is the wrong thing
to do.
There's no doubt about it.
It's for you, as theinvestigator, I think, to come
up with.
And as long as you're robustand as long as you've got
integrity, etc.
Etc.
(36:17):
All those good things, then youwill come to, hopefully, the
right conclusion with theinformation that you're given at
the time.
And if new information comes ina bit later in all of our
statements it always says newinformation comes in I have the
right to change my opinion, tochange, and quite rightly so.
I loved your phrase.
You put a little phrase.
You came up with a littlephrase about know your limits.
I really liked that.
(36:37):
Do you remember what you saidto me?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, I really liked that.
Do you remember what you saidto me?
Yeah, so kind of know yourlimits, but don't limit what you
know.
I mean public service.
I mean this has always been abit of a bugbear for me.
The access to education ispretty limited because budgets
are tight as a resource.
As a fire investigation team, Iwas lucky enough to be part of
a whole time fire investigationteam, so I had no distractions,
no other bolt-ons.
That was all it was.
But still we had a limit towhat we could spend, what we
(36:59):
could look for.
So CPD budgets were prettytight.
Training budgets were tight.
The minimum standard is skillsfor justice level five fire
investigation.
I have issues with thatparticularly, but that's maybe
my personal point of view.
We needed to get fireinvestigators online and working
independently as leads prettyquickly, so we were very keen on
making sure they were taskcompetent before they were
certified competent.
(37:20):
There's all that sort of stuff,but you're going into scenes and
you're going intoinvestigations that may actually
put someone in prison.
With very little experience,very little knowledge.
It was always a case of right.
Okay.
Well, I only know this much.
So I'm only going to beprepared to say this much and
just be a little bit circumspectwith my opinion.
But that doesn't stop youlearning more.
Go and research, go and findout more, because no one's
(37:43):
bringing it to you, no one'ssaying oh Steve, would you like
to go on this really cool course?
It's going to cost a load ofmoney and you're going to be
really well-educated and reallysmart afterwards.
You've got to find this stufffor yourself.
So you go online, you readpapers, you ask people, you
build relationships and again itcomes back to that.
You build a relationship.
You have a hotline to somebody.
It could be yourself, it couldbe someone.
Burgoyne's and Hawkins wereprobably the two big companies
(38:04):
that work in and aroundManchester.
They were always, alwaysgenerous with their time.
Give us a ring, steve, if youneed anything.
Can I just check with you.
This is outside of my comfortzone, but I just need to ask you
a question.
Does this sound plausible?
Does this sound right?
Is there anything else thatcould happen?
You know your limits, so youwrite reports in a way that are
reasonably circumspect.
You're not nailing your colorsto the mast.
(38:24):
If you don't think that's right, you don't stretch.
But equally well, that doesn'tstop you learning about what it
is?
You don't know.
So for the next time, I'velearned a little bit now.
I don't need to be anelectrical engineer to basically
think that, well, I think thecause of this particular fire
was electrical.
I don't need to be a lightingengineer.
I think the lights have causedthis particular problem.
Especially when we're going intoindustrial settings, reach out
for the person.
(38:44):
Who's the specialist, theexpert at the scene?
What's your process?
What is it you make here?
How does it work?
My job really was to identifythe weaknesses, the points of
failure, to say, ah, but thisdoesn't look sound right.
And then you can narrow downand you end up working as a
partnership to basically figureout, probably what's happened.
All of that is all aboutlearning on the job and I tried
(39:05):
endlessly to upskill myself butalso the team training.
Training and it's findingpeople to give us information
that we needed.
And I know that some of yourprevious speakers used the UCLAN
master's course.
We were trying to do it on amodular basis.
There might be nine modules inyour master's fire investigation
course.
If we chop it down into bits,we might be able to say can we
use our CPD budget to maybe dotwo a year and, with a little
(39:28):
bit of accredited prior learningand the skills for justice
level five and the fact thatwe're practitioners.
Can we basically say that if wecan have six modules out of the
nine, you'll give us the degree?
Is it possible to do it on amodule?
It didn't work out,unfortunately.
I saw huge benefits in fireengineering the way fire
interacts with buildings,building design, building
materials and my understandingthen, because, as you know and
(39:50):
as all our fire investigationcolleagues know, if you can't
identify the area of origin, youhaven't got hope in hell of
figuring out what caused it.
So if you can understand howfire interacts with buildings
and materials and whatever, canI do the fire engineering course
?
Can I get on this?
I've already got a degree withUCLan, so they'll give me a
discount and stuff.
No, unfortunately you can't dothis.
So it frustrated me a littlebit that the education wasn't
(40:12):
out there uniformly,consistently across the board
and the skills for justice levelfive was considered minimum
standard for fire investigationin public sector for justice
level five was consideredminimum standard for fire
investigation in public sector.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Sure, I mean, I used to work at cranfield and that's
what I liked about that system.
As private, I know that airaction investigation branch.
When I was there they sent acouple of people on just to do a
pacific module fireinvestigation, explosion
investigation.
I think there's a constant needfor fire investigators to keep
educated.
I don't know if you rememberthe iwi, I see, but the cfi, I
find that incredibly useful.
(40:44):
You can do it as many times asyou like and hopefully end up
towards that CFI.
But again, it's having thatkind of consolidated approach
and which one to go for?
Ife, institute of FireEngineers.
They offer training as well.
But I know the UCAM program.
I know it's very good.
I know the ucam program.
I know it's very good.
I know the cranfield program, Iknow it's very good.
They're not running a full-timemsc at this moment in time but
(41:04):
I think they hope to.
That was certainly theintention when I was there.
It's frustrating, I think.
When you said about the levelone, I've corrected a couple of
level one fire investigations.
I've been called to scene andit's clearly not what it is.
But I think that just comesdown to the training it comes,
comes down to the awareness.
As you quite rightly said, it'snothing to do with anything
other than fire crews are busy,they've got a certain amount of
(41:26):
time.
They might have another call,they might have been pulled from
one area to another area andsomebody else is covering their
area.
I'll be honest as well.
I've always found, when I havecorrected or have contacted the
head of the unit or whatever,they've always said, yeah,
you've had to look at it andredesignate it.
So I think, unfortunately, it'sreally about money and having
the money and the time forpersonnel to go and do that sort
(41:46):
of training.
But hopefully, as I said, I wastalking to mick forbes this
morning and they've got newsouth wales fire investigation
association.
They've got a youtube channeland I've watched their youtube
channel quite a lot.
So there is information outthere.
It's just got to make sure it'scredible.
It's just got to make sure it'scredible.
I mean, you just got to makesure it's from people who know
really what they're talkingabout.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You mentioned explosions.
I mean we don't get manyexplosions, but when we did have
, I mean I was also a little bitstumped.
I mean, one of my firstinvestigations we had an
explosion and very little damage.
Inside the room, the flat, ifyou like.
There was a wrist packet thathad shrunk a little bit, the
bread packet had shrunk a littlebit, but the walls had shifted,
the ceiling had lifted, thewindow was, I think, what on
earth, how has that happened?
(42:24):
And then I related another oneto an aerosol can that was next
to a wall heater that justoverheated and blew.
And again, little things.
A guy had and he got convictedfor this put a camping gas
aerosol can, if you like, on ahob, turned the hob on and we
had the cam sort of buried inthe ceiling and it sort of
pushed out windows.
We had some of it on the cctvfrom next door neighbor and the
(42:44):
windows blowing out.
Whatever else I'm looking atthis.
I'm expecting a bomb and acrater and the damage to be
extensive.
And there was stuff next tothis point of origin, this point
of explosion, that was juststill sat there, did not move
and it took someone to explainto me.
No, think about it as like asail on a sailing ship.
The big surface areas are blownover, small surface area stuff
just doesn't get touched.
(43:05):
And it was revelatory to me allthis sort of stuff and again
it's one of them.
You can then, as a result ofreaching out, speaking to people
with credibility and competenceto explain things to you, it
then starts to make sense andyou can write valid reports
based around that and youunderstand what's going on.
That particular job though itdrove me nuts, because all the
training we do with the crewsabout preserving the scene don't
(43:26):
spoil the scene.
Just remember that.
I want to come and have a lookat it.
I know you've got a firefight.
I know you want to move thingsaround.
I know you want to check forhotspots and whatever else and
you want to make it safe.
But you know that big switchwhere it't throw all the circuit
breakers or whatever.
I remember walking through thatscene when we got there, again
hands in pockets, and I'mthinking right, okay, so it
(43:49):
looks here.
Now we've got this aerosol canthat's embedded in the ceiling
right above the ring on the hob,and the hob that particular
ring is smashed Again.
It's all looking like this andI'm looking at oh, there's the
isolation switch for the cookerand it's in the off position.
All right, okay, who's donethat?
Nobody.
Nobody owned up to it.
I said, well, what am Isupposed to do with this?
Do I believe now that this wasin the off position all the time
and therefore it undermines?
(44:09):
There's certainly the initialhypothesis of what this, what's
happened here, or is somebodytoo scared to say that they
threw the switch?
It's a constant battle tosometimes remind people.
One big switch, they isolateeverything, leave it like that
and we've got a fighting chancesometimes.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
But yeah, that was one of my bugbears, yeah yeah,
it would just take the breakerout on the outside of the big
fuse.
Yeah, exactly right, yeah, yeah,yeah there's a misconception
about some explosions, I thinkrapid defragations, it's a very
rapid frame front.
I've had a couple of jobs whereit's only really tissue paper
and a bit of wallpaper, that'slike come away from the wall,
that's slightly cinched.
Jobs where it's only reallytissue paper and a bit of
wallpaper, that's like come awayfrom the wall.
That's slightly cinched, and soit's very actual little fire.
(44:46):
There, like you say, you canhave a whole wall blown out or a
whole window blown out.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It's an interesting phenomenon one of your previous
guests he was talking about isit in leicester?
The explosion there, so you'vegot the deflagration there, so
it caused the, the damage, itblew things out, the building
was on fire and then you go to agas explosion and the debris
field is massive by comparison,but there's no fire anywhere
because you're right, thedifference between deflagration,
detonation, the flame front andwhatever and this is all part
(45:12):
of this self-learning that youneed to do in public service
that you're constantly lookingto find the answer and then you
realize I don't know enough toactually say something more.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
So I've got to go and do the research myself and I've
got to go and find some answersthere.
Major, serious loss.
I've turned up at the scene.
I think, oh, this could becoming down to electrical.
It looks like electrical.
Then reach out, we would havean electrical engineer in the
firm and get them to give theiropinion WhatsApp it at the time,
facetime it, whatever get theiropinion and if it needs that
(45:56):
expertise, then they would turnup the same day or the following
day or whatever at a laterpoint just to back you up as a
general kind of CSI, a generalFI.
But, yeah, fantastic, I thinkwe've done loads of top tips, to
be honest, with you today,steve.
So I'm not going to ask youthat one, but we're getting
towards our time.
Unfortunately, we could probablycarry on for hours and hours,
but one thing I would say aboutthe training as well, as I think
(46:18):
I've noticed over the years, isthat I remember doing a murder,
2005 and female set lights onthe bed, already deceased, and
the fire crew came in.
They recovered the person'sreport, recovered the female
outside and then they used afull-on hose to spray most of
the contents of the bed up ontothe wall.
We just don't see that anymore.
We see that gas cooling andit's kind of dribbled on.
(46:40):
I remember Andy at HampshirePolice and their arson
investigation, seeing him putout a few bits and pieces of
when we do live burns.
He literally just kind of getsout, takes the hot gases away by
gas cooling and then justdribbles water everywhere.
And I think we're much better atthat and I think fire crews are
hoping that they're stillgetting that kind of education
from a preservation point ofview.
That that they're still gettingthat kind of education from a
(47:01):
preservation point of view,that's good.
I've noticed a big differencein that.
What's next for you, steve?
I know that you're obviouslyretired and what are you up to
now?
Where are you going to now?
What's your plans?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
no, no, I was coming to the end of my time.
I started thinking about whatopportunities there might be.
There was nothing really in thefire service to stay on.
My pension had sort of reacheda point where if I didn't take
it I'd start to be penalizedreally.
I reached out and I studied andwas awarded an mfil where I
studied carbon emissions fromfires in the built environment.
On the basis that I wanted tobe a bit of an environmentalist.
(47:28):
I started looking out forenvironment type jobs and uh,
what job is it?
Within the environment agencyand it's basically starting at
the bottom again.
We're affectionately referredto as river bin men.
I go out as the part of theresponse team just making sure
that some of the overflow gratesand whatever else are clean and
we do river walks and stufflike that.
And I'm still making thattransition from having a job
where I supervised, I managedfire scenes, I managed crews and
(47:51):
whatever else, to now being theguy with a pair of wellies and
a fork and being asked to get inthe river and clean it out.
It's okay, like I say, I'mstill going through that
transition period to see whetheror not it's what I want to do.
So, yeah, that's where I'm at.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
I've worked with you, obviously, and your attitude
and all that good stuff.
So I think there areopportunities there.
There's plenty of ex-fireservice.
We've had plenty on who are nowin the private sector, but I
think it shows who you're outabout and it's active and that
kind of stuff and I think that'sthe sort of people that we are,
we want to be.
You know, I can't imagine beingsat behind a desk all day.
I love being still.
(48:23):
I'm 52 years old now and Iintend to keep going for as long
as I can, still excavating out,because that's the aspect I
really enjoy.
I don't really enjoy thepaperwork side of it.
But I wish you good luck, steve.
As I said, I've worked with you.
I think you're fantastic.
Fella, I wish you the best ofluck and thanks very much for
coming on the podcast.
I really appreciate your time,mate.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
You're a gentleman and it's been an absolute
pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
All right, mate.
Thanks again.
Cheers, you take care and youhey.
Thank you for listening to CSIon Fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our webpage.
Remember factor non-verbal Takecare Good, remember factor
(49:05):
non-verbal take care, goodhunting.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I hope to see you on the next one.
Cheers.
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