October 8, 2024 • 50 mins
Uncover the secrets behind fire investigations and gain invaluable insights from industry experts on this bi-weekly episode of CSI on Fire.
We’re thrilled to bring you exciting updates on upcoming fire investigation conferences in Ireland and New South Wales. Plus, we've got a special shout-out to Scott and Chastity’s InFocus Fire Investigation podcast.
Ready to learn the ins and outs of solar panel fire investigations? We take a deep dive into the world of photovoltaic (PV) systems, highlighting critical safety concerns and common pitfalls like poor electrical workmanship and incorrect switch ratings.
Listen as we break down real-world examples, including a significant incident at a hospital, to emphasize the importance of understanding and managing PV systems in fire response and investigation. We also cover the complexities of investigating PV system fires, stressing the importance of assuming all panels and cables are energized until confirmed otherwise, and the invaluable data smart PV systems can provide.
We also discuss the significance of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and the rigorous standards for fire investigation training. Plus, get a sneak peek into the upcoming UKFI conferences and how they play a crucial role in ongoing education for fire investigators.
James Acott IAAI-CFI(V) FFireInv | LinkedIn
https://www.fireinvestigationsuk.com/
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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.
Hi everyone, welcome to CSI onFire.
(00:26):
Just a quick couple of updatesand announcements.
I guess the CSI on Fire podcastis going to be moving to a
bi-weekly publication, simplybecause very exciting news.
I'm very pleased I'm comingback to the UK, back to my
friends and family, back to anew job.
So exciting times.
Tell you more about that alittle bit later maybe.
But yeah, just to cut down onthe cost.
(00:46):
I hope you're enjoying thepodcast and just conscious that
I'll have another full-time job,busy job to do as well.
So yeah, that's the reasonbehind that, just to make sure
that I can keep going.
Quick shout out to Scott andChastity on the InFocus Fire
Investigation.
The Fire Investigation InFFocus podcast.
Keep giving me shout outs.
So fantastic podcast.
They come out every two weeksas well.
(01:08):
Thoroughly recommend it,particularly if you're starting
out on your first kind of inrows into fire investigation.
I'm going to try and alternate,actually, so that their podcast
comes out one week and minecomes out the second.
I hope you're really enjoyingthe podcast.
Do give me any feedback, dogive me any suggested.
You want to be a guest?
You're always welcome on I'mnot sure guests, but I'm always
(01:29):
up for new guests and differenttopics etc.
And we're going to come back tosome of our old guests as well,
who I think we've got more toadd as well.
So just to also give you a shoutout about some of the
conferences that are coming up.
So the irish association fireinvestigation they've got their
conference on the 9th of october.
So that would be a cracking one, I reckon, and a good crack
after in the best irishtraditions.
(01:51):
Also to say the new south walesassociation they've got their
australian arson fireinvestigation conference on the
21st, the 23rd of october.
So again, some real massivespeakers.
Cameron novak's going to bethere as a keynote speaker.
It's going to be a reallyfantastic conference, I think,
that one.
I only wish I could go to itTheory Day, I think, on the
(02:11):
first day, or the first day, andthen a Burn and Learn on the
second day, which is alwaysfantastic.
So it doesn't matter whichstage of fire investigation
career you're at, always learnsomething from a Burn and Learn.
So yeah, just to give those ashout out as well.
Welcome to CSI Fire, fireInvestigation Podcast.
This is episode 28.
I've got a fantastic guest ontoday I've got James Aycock.
(02:33):
Welcome to the podcast, james.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you very much for havingme on.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, it's taken us a little while to match up our
diaries, but we finally gotthere, and I know you've been
busy today with kids back atschool and all that and
balancing work and home life.
So let's start with as wealways do.
Let's talk about you, james,and give us your background.
How did you get into fireinvestigation?
How you've ended up on thepodcast today, thank you so much
so.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
My journey into fire investigation and forensics
actually started when I was atschool.
If you recall, at some schoolsat the end of term last day of
the year, some of the teachersallowed you to watch a film or
bring in board games.
We had a high school scienceteacher that used to wheel in
the television into the sciencelab and he used to play us
(03:17):
forensic documentaries that he'drecorded off the TV and that
just really captured my interestright from kind of secondary
school kind of level.
So, following A-levels, I thenstudied forensic science at
UCLan as the degree and we didvarious different modules.
That was my first introduction.
We had a couple of modules thatincluded some FI practice as
(03:38):
well as some of the chemistryand bits like that that we was
looking at.
I just really enjoyed theeverything that we did prior,
that we were doing a lot of thecsi skills, and to me it was the
csi was kind of instructed to ascene where they knew a crime
had been committed and then youwere just trying to kind of put
the story together.
But with fire investigation youwere starting from the
beginning.
You didn't know what hadhappened, you didn't know
(04:00):
whether it was a crime, so youwere kind of completely and to
me it seemed to be the oneforensic discipline where you
were kind of totally digging out.
You were doing reconstructions,rebuilding in labs and taking
appliances apart, and thatreally just really interested me
.
So right from my undergraduatedissertation I chose a topic
linked to fire investigation.
(04:20):
I was looking at accelerantsand different detection methods.
That put me in touch right fromthe outset with the UKFI, which
I think it was in its firstyear of establishment at that
point, also with the kind of hadcreated links at that point,
just reaching out as anundergraduate student to the
fire college.
Following completion myundergraduate degree I then went
(04:43):
on did a master's in fireengineering at UCLan.
I wasn't at that time awarethere was a fire investigation
master's.
So fire engineering, buildingdesign, how to cope with a fire
and kind of in theory that ifyou understand how the building
should design and cope with afire then you can kind of read
it backwards to understandwhat's happened in the fire and
spread that way.
To understand what's happenedin the fire and spread that way,
(05:08):
I think, as a lot or some ofyour other kind of guests
mentioned following coming outof my master's degree I was keen
to get into fire investigationand I started speaking to a
couple of the fire rescueservices.
At that point there was nocivilian roles in FI in the UK.
Some were kind of talking thatif I joined the fire service as
a firefighter and kind of therewas a progressional route
through the ranks up to stationofficer that you might end up in
(05:30):
FI in several years time andthere was too many ifs and buts
in kind of that for me and Iwent to a few interviews that I
was being told I didn't haveenough experience of fires.
That had the academics in thatbackground but not fireside.
So then summer of 2004 I waskind of fortunate enough to kind
(05:50):
of almost do an internship atthe fire service college,
working in the fire departmentor the fire investigation
department.
We was there.
I was there setting up thecontainers for the burns.
I was there I think it wasthree quarters and the lectures,
and then when I wasn't at thefire college and during the week
I was riding with London FireBrigade and going out to shots
(06:10):
with those at the weekends andthat was really good.
And that summer I also went Ithink it was Interflam and that
was up in Edinburgh, the firescience conference.
There was also the firstsymposium of fire investigation
conference.
That was a us uk collaborationand that year it was held at
morton.
So that was great to meet allthese experienced fire
(06:32):
investigators and talk to themand from there that led to me
getting a role as a fireinvestigator within the private
sector for a consultancy andkind of my route has come on
onwards from that point of view,that kind of having joined the
consultancy and kind of my routehas come on onwards from that
point of view, that kind ofhaving joined the consultancy,
then went through quite a longperiod of shadowing another
investigator that and this iscertainly a tip that I've used
(06:55):
with other investigators I'vehelped with the training,
development of that.
My training kind of went throughdifferent stages that I was
shadowing to start with and thenyou kind of being asked
questions and asked to describethe scene, what you were seeing
to another investigator and kindof writing ghost reports, as we
called them.
So it was a second report justonly stayed in the file and once
(07:16):
kind of those ghost reportswere matching the primary
investigators report kind of,you then start to take the lead
and whilst being accompanied,you take the lead, I produce the
report and they signed off andthen that led to me kind of
being fire investigation kind ofon my own and going from there
and being sure, sure since thenand I joined fire investigations
(07:39):
uk in 2013, so being with thosefor just over 11 years now.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So that was my route to my investigation fantastic, I
think, the mentoring side of itand that ghost reporting.
I think that's really useful.
Very similar kind of exercisesthat been mentored and then
gradually over time and time.
That that's not just for thebenefit of your employer, I
guess it's also for the benefityou.
I found that really usefuldoing those ghosts and when I've
(08:05):
mentored a couple, both CSIsand FIs, getting them to do
their own set of photographs,for example, and then having a
comparison of what you've doneand what they've done and then
talking through that, I foundthat really useful both as a
mentee and also as a mentor.
Fantastic, james, and you've gotsome big names.
In UKFI and OFI UK there's somebig, big names.
I see Steve's just sort ofrejoined.
(08:26):
I don't know if it was rejoined, but yes, he's come back into
the foray, if you like.
So that's good to have Steveback on the practical side.
Solar panels so I've done acouple of solar panel jobs, but
(08:47):
fairly limited.
So once again, selfishly, I'mjust trying to educate myself
and hopefully other people willget it as well.
So solar panels what are they,how does it work?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
and we'll get into that yeah, absolutely, and as I
think you've discussed withother groups, that world of fire
investigation is constantlyevolving.
Do technologies change thingsthat you're looking at?
So when I first started wewasn't looking at lithium
battery fires, wasn't looking atPV and renewable fires, wasn't
looking at the hybrid andelectric vehicle fires, so kind
of.
As these technologies becomemore kind of commonplace, then
(09:16):
we kind of have to evolve as FIsand bring them into our skill
set.
So being involved in a fewsolar panel fires, kind of pre
or between 2011, 2015, I'mstarting to see a little bit of
a trend.
But back in 2015, the Departmentof Energy and Climate Change,
(09:38):
as it was the governmentdepartment, then became the
Department of Business, energyand Industry Strategy and lots
of kind of government changingnames of departments.
They commissioned BRE and BRE'sNational Solar Centre to
undertake a fire researchproject into kind of fires in
solar panels and fires acrossthose industries.
That was a project that was ledby BRE forming kind of research
(10:01):
of literature, standards andtraining, re forming kind of
research of literature,standards and training.
But FIUK were tasked withassisting of investigation of
live incidents, which meant wewere being deployed to a number
of solar panel fires, thedifferent types of system, from
domestic and commercial ones,and that kind of gave a real
insight of some of the issuesthat we're starting to see in
(10:22):
solar panel systems.
We all understand that solarpanels kind of comprise some
form of panels that are eitheron the roof of a property or
kind of ground mounted From.
There's some equipment,normally in the inverter, that
generates or convertselectricity converted from the
modules, and then there's someswitch or switch gear that just
regulates and allows you toisolate the array.
(10:44):
So there's different parts ofthe PV to be aware of and
different fires.
We can have rooftop fires, wecan have plant wind fires in PV.
It depends on the type ofequipment that you've got, where
it's located and parts likethat.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, so in terms of like DC, does that represent any
kind of health and safetyissues to us as fire
investigators?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yes, absolutely.
So.
There's different risksinvolved with the PV.
That it's not OK.
As soon as you switch it off onthe ground floor, the array is
obviously still generating.
As soon as you switch it off onthe ground floor, the array is
obviously still generating.
The generate is a direct arc,so a lower DC voltage can give
you kind of more of a belt onelectrocution.
So there's different ways.
You do have to be careful andobviously as fire responders and
(11:27):
fire investigators be awarethat the system may be energized
by turning off.
The isolation switches can cutor will cut the electrical
current and the flow ofelectricity through the circuit.
We could still end up with livevoltage under the system.
So you just need to be aware ofsome of the voltage that can be
there and some of the practicesto break down the voltage to
make it much safer at lowerlevels and provide safe working
(11:51):
for electrical installations.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because, well, not funny,
but it's ironic in that one ofthe big jobs I had was at
hospital.
I won't go into too muchdetails.
I'm not sure it's beenfinalized, but I put the origin
down to the fireman switch.
So the actual isolation switcha bit of research that I've done
that that seems to be fairlycommon is actually where the
switch is the isolation switch,or where the dc comes in and
(12:13):
you're trying to.
There's some high resistance orsome difference in current
there.
Is that your experiences asyou've investigated it yeah,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
There's various components.
I'm trying to go through thosethat investigators should be
aware of and consider.
But the investigators should beable to understand the system,
how the system works and fromthe fundamentals of what's
actually involved in the system.
There's a difference betweenkind of what we know as on-roof
solar systems.
So that's kind of when solarpanels are applied to
(12:43):
conventional house and you stillhave your roofing tiles, but
you normally have an aluminiumframe that lifts the panels up
over the roof tiles.
What we tend to see on newbuilds and develop developments
are in roof systems where thesolar panels would be fitted in
lieu of roofing tiles so theywould have a weatherproofing
tray or mounting systemunderneath the panels.
(13:04):
The panels seem to be a littlebit more flushed with the roof
line and then it's just beingaware of the system that that's
there.
So we don't take any singlecomponent in isolation but you
look at what is the mounting andwhat's the panel and, as you
say, the switch gear.
So as part of the project andsince then we have seen a large
number of buyers, as you say,with the dc isolators.
(13:25):
So you have, typically you havea switch on the dc isolator as
it comes in between the paneland the inverter and you would
have an ac isolator coming fromthe supply from the inverter
between the panel and theinverter and you would have an
AC isolator coming from thesupply from the inverter between
the meter inside and generation.
On the DC isolators we've seenwell general poor electrical
workmanship skills, kind ofloose connections, items like
(13:47):
that.
We have seen issues whereswitches have been incorrectly
rated.
Because the DC switch has a lotmore power, you have to use a
switch that's correctly ratedfor that level of DC current
that's put into it.
And if anyone's kind of takenoff the cover for a DC switch,
what they might see is kind ofseveral loops of a cable and by
(14:09):
switching the current throughmultiple contacts within the
switch you break down the energyof the switching arc that opens
or that occurs every time youopen and close it.
Now what we have seen is wheresome of the switches have been
poorly configured or underratedfor use or someone's even used
an AC rated switch for the DCside and at that point the
switch just kind of isn'tcapable of taking the internal
(14:32):
switching arc and that starts tobreak down and damage the
contacts, kind of arcing, andthat fuses them together and you
end up with localized heatinginside the switch.
Yeah, we've seen a few fires ordealt with fires within the
actual pv array itself, withinthe modules.
What can happen there is we seeexamples of or crimping or
(14:53):
incompatible plugs, the cablesthat come and anyone that's kind
of dealing with fireinvestigations on the array.
We'd always kind of specify youneed to try and identify what's
referred to as the string cables.
So if you picture a solarmodule, it comes out the factory
with two cables on the back ofthem and you plug that to the
(15:13):
next panel to create a seriesstring-like battery.
So you take the positiveterminal from one panel, connect
it to the negative panel at thenext panel and so forth.
You make a chain whichincreases the voltage.
The trouble is thoseconnections that get supplied on
the solar panel are factoryfitted and would have gone
through the quality assurancechecks in the factory.
But at the end of each of thosecables you'd have the string
(15:36):
connectors which have beenassembled on site and they might
not have as rigorous qualitykind of checks on those.
So always try and identify thestring, the ends of the string,
look at the quality of theconnections, the connections
that they use on there.
They have issues with, apartfrom incompatible, but also
forging or components that kindof pretend to be one brand but
(15:59):
but aren't.
And then there are cheap importsfrom china, yeah, yeah they're
not very rare, but again, justthings to be aware of.
And we also saw a lot of issuesat the time with
weatherproofing.
So where people have, some ofthe inverters are designed to be
installed outdoors and theisolator switches are designed
to be installed outside and areweather rated.
(16:20):
Numerous cables incoming inthrough a cable gland at the top
of the switch will defeat theweatherproofing and allow water
build up inside the switch.
So we've seen several examplesof those and still continue to
see those.
So there's some of the issuesthat we've seen.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Seen several examples of those and still continue to
see those.
So they're some of the issuesthat would be okay, I've got you
.
So incompatibility, and alsothey're like clipping clips,
aren't they?
They're kind of like two bitsof plastic and they clip in
together.
And I guess, making sure,installation wise, that you've
installed them correctly, makingsure that the actual quality of
the clips I guess manufacturerson their panels would state the
standard and the quality of theconnection clip, and I guess
(16:55):
that's not always followed whenan electrician comes along or
another subcontractor comesalong and maybe uses lesser
quality clips or something,always, as you say, just been
conned in the sense of he thinkshe's buying MK stuff and he's
buying some knockoff fromsomewhere else.
But yeah, that's interesting.
And of course we've got thenormal connections with
electricity and sort ofcorrosion, poor connections,
high resistance, that's allstill applicable.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, absolutely you get both of that on the DC and
the AC sides that if things havebeen poorly installed you're
going to get localised heating.
It's quite rare to get aserious fire that takes out the
array and the inverter.
But particularly on a lot ofdomestic properties in the UK we
might find that the inverterand the switch gear is actually
involved in it or installed inthe loft space, which the number
(17:39):
of fires are very, very rareand certainly I'm not looking to
kind of cause any panic.
You know that we're in anindustry where we get drawn to
fires.
There have been a very smallnumber of fires but where they
do occur, in the switch, in theinverters and in the loft, that
it's much harder.
That it's just a case ofidentifying the components that
are there, identifying thesystems and going through.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So that's quite useful to see from that sure if
I turn up at a fire scene and Isuspect that we got localized in
the roof, for example, andyou've got localized sort of
fire damage, what kind of thingsshould I be looking for?
Is there a kind of checklist?
Is there a recommended?
You've got 921 and that kind ofstuff but from your experience,
what were the sort of things,what were the steps you go
through to identify andeliminate other potential causes
(18:23):
of the fire and hone down onthe solar panel?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
yes, absolutely so.
You say all your usual methodsto consider everything else and
all other potential sources ofenergy.
You're working out where thereis electricity, what other
circuits are available, and thenit's great just to kind of go
through the system.
As I say, if you've still gotthe array you can start the well
, first checks kind of.
We always kind of carry voltagemeters and we're able to kind
(18:46):
of do checks.
I'd say to the environmentinvestigator kind of assume that
the panel is energized untilyou're confirmed that it isn't.
It's been switched off.
And I say that comes a littlebit harder if the switch gear is
inaccessible, but just kind ofassume that the cables are
energized.
I know that some fire serviceskind of will try and cut into
the cables.
By cutting those cables reducesthe strings and by decreasing
(19:10):
the number of panels that areconnected together you break
down the voltage.
So kind of each panel on itsown should be kind of putting
out 40 volts, which is muchsafer to work with than the
hundreds of volts that you canget in the long chains of solar
panels.
Trying to go through the system, identify how the string is
laid out.
If it's a conventional houseand you've got six to 10 panels
on the roof, then they're alllikely to be part of one string.
(19:32):
When start getting into the orcomplex fires and the commercial
pv fires, you're going to endup with multiple hundreds of
strings trying to working outwhere's the start of one,
where's the end of anotherstring.
And I'm working through thatway and then kind of going
through if you can access theisolation equipment, the
inverter, either if they'retotally damaged, and finally
(19:52):
we're looking kind of forevidence of connections, kind of
that we normally do with anyother electrical appliance at
that level.
One thing I quite like with thepv fires is in fi, we really
like data kind of as muchinformation we can get about
fire.
We like it when there's cctvfootage or doorbell footage of a
fire.
And what I would say is, withthe pv systems, whilst it's new
(20:15):
technology, a lot of the pvsystems that are out there are
smart systems.
So that might be a lot ofpeople.
If they're paid and invested tohave solar panels on their roof
, they're likely to have adisplay down in the kitchen or
somewhere else in the house thattells them how much their pv
system was generating at anytime if they're making money and
(20:35):
people kind of like to see thisdata.
So as an investigator, weshould be trying to source some
of that data.
It could be just a case ofspeaking with the homeowner of
the property.
If they've got cloud access,they might be able to show you
the records on their phone orsend you a computer printout of
what the panel was doing.
If they haven't got a portabledisplay or a cloud-based system,
(20:56):
then that data should still bein the inverter.
So, providing the inverter'snot totally burnt out, it will
be possible to safely re ordisconnect.
Everything can then re-energizethe inverter either in the
scene or in a laboratory, beable to connect over a laptop or
a phone or tablet device tothat inverter and you should be
able to extract the a laptop ora phone or tablet device to that
inverter.
And you should be able toextract the data log of
(21:17):
generation files, what the pvsystem was doing, data layer,
any error messages, and again,that can be really useful for pv
that when you've got multiplestrings as we see kind of rows
of the panels, you can start tosee if there was a fault with
one particular string or if itwas underperforming compared to
kind of everything around it.
So I'd always say there's awealth of data around PV panels
(21:40):
that FIs should be kind oflooking for and trying to get.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
OK, fantastic, I mean , I guess it's a bit like a fire
alarm panel in the sameinterrogation wise, but from
what you're saying and you'relooking for, what are you
looking for in terms of you'relooking for error codes, or
you're looking for one panelover a period of time generating
less electricity, or what werethe sort of things you'd be
looking for?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
just any anomalies.
Really, I think in fireinvestigation there's a lot of
kind of understanding thepatterns of kind of what's going
on and looking for changes thathave things kind of stopped
working.
And you can then use that datathat say, if you've got a large
commercial display with manyhundreds of solar panels, then
that data could help you kind offocus in on a particular area
of an array of multiple panelsthat are burnt.
(22:21):
And then that's where we woulduse our scene skills from fire
investigation that we're goingthrough and we're distinguishing
burnt connectors from thosethat are electrically damaged
and then assessing andunderstanding whether that
electrical damage is causativeor whether it's a consequence of
fire attack.
Sure, there's a little bit of adifference that with the DC
(22:42):
cables that you don't tend tohave so many short circuits that
where we have, say, in ACcables, where you have twin and
earth in the same insulation,you would have a positive and
negative short circuit, wherewith the DCs, because the
positive and negative shortcircuit where with the DCs
because the positive andnegative cables are separate
conductors is both would have tobe bridged or damaged and
(23:02):
touching for a short circuit tooccur.
But what we tend to get more ofis inline arcing.
So where a connection, either acrimp or the the mated part of
the connector starts to fall andyou tend to get a dc electric
arc kind of jumping across thatgap, that then occurs in the
conductor you tend to.
The connections are well madeand well assembled.
(23:24):
Even in severe situations youdon't tend to see inline arcing
across the connector.
The inline arcing it does tendto be an indicator of a poor
connector but like any evidence,you need to assess it with the
totality of the scene andeverything else you identify
sure, in an ac system you'dexpect the circuit breaker to
cut in and actually maybeprotect the system early.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And that's the other problem with dc, isn't it?
I'm not going to put words inyour mouth or anything, but
that's my understanding.
Correct me if I'm wrong, butbecause it's dc and, as you said
, it's constantly, there's nokind of cut out from the sun, if
that makes sense yeah, no,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
When we look at ac fires we look at where the
electrical installation comesinto a property and then you
would have the meter and thefuse arrangements going out and
then say, in uk, plug sockets,we would have additional fusing
so you can start to trace yourprotection back where in dc
again, remembering, yourelectricity is flowing the
(24:19):
opposite direction, so it's notgoing from the inverter to the
array, it's coming from thearray into the inverter.
It's kind of any fuse or anyprotection that's in and around
the inverter doesn't protect thearray.
And certainly I know that well.
You have international listersand there's different
requirements for pb installs.
America and Australia, comparedto UK, compared to national
wiring regulations.
The majority of domesticproperties in the UK kind of
(24:42):
don't have fuse protection onthe DC side and the only
protection kind of will be inthe inverter.
So there isn't that level ofprotection that's there and kind
of.
There are other systems, butagain they're not compulsory in
uk wiring megs, for you havethings like fireman switches or
rapid shutdowns which they use alot of in the us pv systems.
(25:02):
A rapid shutdown is a switchthat when it loses normally ac
power or loses the grid or itcan be linked to the fire alarm
and the fire alarm operates, therapid shutdown can shut down
the voltage, kind of at a modulelevel within the array.
Again, this technology isavailable in the UK but tends to
be more optional specificationrather than required.
(25:22):
So again, it's justunderstanding if those type of
systems are there.
The other thing just to be awareof on some solar panels they
have module inverters.
So instead of having one bigbox that then is bulky and goes
on the wall either in the loftor in a plant room, you can have
small little boxes that sit onthe back of every single module
so that converts it into ac andthen it runs the ac down kind of
(25:45):
from panel.
And again it's keeping up withchanges in technology that we
now get PV systems fitted withoptimizers, which is again is
another little plug and play boxwhich now fits in between each
solar panel you're connectingright and the optimizer that
should there kind of be someshading or drop of generation on
(26:05):
one part of a module or part ofthe array, the optimizer kind
of kicks in and adjusts theamount of electricity being
generated so the optimal amountof electricity is always coming
out of the erase.
Again, it's just anothertechnology that's included
within the erasers to be awareof, and then obviously, battery
systems as well.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Now that, yeah, into the shop have you seen, because
obviously cost of electricity,that kind of stuff.
I've seen a couple of homemadelithium battery sort of banks.
Have you seen some homemadesolar?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
yeah, we have seen some homemade battery banks that
people have put in anddisassembled electric vehicle
batteries and converted for homeuse, but there's a lot of
battery systems in circulationin the uk that don't have any
issues and, again, providingyou're using a correctly
specified and installed system,then it should run without any
problems whatsoever.
So we have seen some issueswith either poor installation or
(26:58):
, as you say, homemade batterypacks, which are never
recommended interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
One of the things I wanted to talk about is sort of
a myth really.
I think you know one of thethings especially in the uk,
even on a cloudy day, it's stillgenerating electricity.
So I've heard people say, well,it couldn't be the solar panel
because it was a cloudy day.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Total nonsense, really yeah, absolutely
obviously the amount of energyand coming out of the solar
panel it increases better on asunny day ensures as well that
you're more likely to generate ahigher amount of electricity on
a cooler day than you are, kindof a mid-summer day that's full
of sunshine.
But if the panels are startingto get too hot or starting to
get warm just through operation,that can have effect on the
(27:35):
generation as well.
So yeah, we've seen fires atkind of certain peak times of
the day, but only because thefire occurs outside of those
times.
It doesn't mean you can'texclude it.
You kind of have to understandwhat's going on and with the
system as you said, thetotalitarian effect of it all
yeah and say a lot of the issuesof poor connections and things
(27:56):
like that.
we know resistive heating isdegenerative.
There's no way of kind ofestimating or predicting the
rate of deterioration because itdepends on the oxidation cycle
of electrical connection,heating up and then cooling down
and growing kind of that way.
The more it heats up, thehigher the electrical resistance
, higher the temperature andthen it kind of goes into that
degenerative cycle.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah sure, and then it kind of goes into that
degenerative side.
Yeah, sure.
Also, I think I wanted to saythat the little bit of research
I did ready for you coming onreally, mate was just about sort
of foliage covering and thepanels being dirty and in
specific areas you can get hotspots and stuff like that.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
yeah, absolutely the solar panel should have the
protection built in them that,as you say, if they develop kind
of shading, as it's called, ifpart of the sun was blocked off,
they've got diodes into thesolar panel should be the
protection built in them that,as you say, if they develop kind
of shading, as it's called, ifpart of the sun was blocked off,
they've got diodes in.
So the solar panel should beable to balance that and it
shouldn't be a safety issue.
It just means that how yourmain energy generation is
dropping off, particularlycommercial ones, there should be
(28:54):
a regular maintenance regime.
That kind of fall.
We do electrical checks andelectrical inspection of AC
circuits and we do those in allbusinesses and commercial
properties and rental properties.
It's up to homeowners if kindof they want to do them.
But that system of electricalinstallation check doesn't kind
of cover the PV.
But you can get specialists inthat will come and do a PV
(29:17):
safety check and they'll look atsome of the temperatures, they
make sure the panels are cleanand they measure the voltages
and currents coming out thestring to make sure that's in
line with design requirements.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
certainly kind of any commercial installs should have
a regular maintenance regime inplace and hopefully that would
pick up any issues or defectsbecause before they become a
major issue and I get and Ithink the other thing to say as
well is that you know, when wego to scene, we're obviously, if
it's something of that nature,we always ask for maintenance
sheets when was it?
And also, when was the lasttime?
If someone's been in the daybefore, if someone's come in and
(29:51):
done a new install or done somemaintenance the day before,
that can also be a considerationwithin the.
Was that causative to theactual fire itself?
So yeah, good, interestingstuff absolutely it's.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
This is different levels, that a lot of the
installs on domestic propertieskind of it gets plugged in and
it runs until it stops working.
But saying that we have beeninvolved in fires where where I
was involved in one on a schoolinstallation and when we went
back and asked for data, the pvsystem had actually been offline
for a year and hadn't beengenerating.
Oh wow, okay, it was a firethat self-extinguished again in
(30:25):
an isolator switch.
I think that was detected whenthe school caretaker went up on
the roof at the end of term toclear footballs and bits and saw
one of the switches was burntout.
But when we tried to go intothe data to see what had
happened because it hadn'tgenerated for a year the system
(30:46):
was still sending a meterreading and the metering company
.
They were happy they werereceiving a meter reading, but
there was no intelligentanalysis in there to see that
the meter reading wasn'tactually changing over the
course of the year.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
How interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I hadn't thought of that and, like you say, I hadn't
really thought about untiltoday about all the data that
must be there in terms of, likeEON or somebody else, british
Gas, you know, if you have gotthat type of meter and you are
feeding solar into the grid orthey're taking that off your
electricity bill in effect, thenthey'll be monitoring that,
obviously, and that's a veryuseful kind of area of data.
And obviously we're seeing nowmore and more solar panels in
(31:15):
the uk because of the energycrisis and that kind of stuff
and global warming.
But we're also seeing massivekind of systems on the top of
supermarkets and big amazonplaces and all kind of storage
facilities that are obviouslygenerating their own electricity
and trying to save electricityand costs and also save the
planet.
So I think, do you see more andmore solar panel fires coming
(31:36):
in the future simply becausethere's more and more systems?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
out there.
Yeah, absolutely it's.
Again as a fire investigatorand this is kind of what led to
our interest in the solar panelsociety, we were certainly
seeing a rise of fires thatinvolved PV, whether it was a
fire that had started in the PVsystem or started elsewhere, or
started in a bedroom in aproperty, but gone through the
ceiling and then gone throughthe roof and then involved the
PV on the roof, certainly addinga say, an extra element to the
(32:02):
investigation and an extra areathat needs to be considered and
examined with all potentialcauses yeah, I just I imagine if
you're an electrician they'vebeen doing AC for 25 years you
probably know your stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Is there a qualification for electricians
to install?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
yeah, there are pv installers courses, the pv
electrics and depending on thesize of the scale whether you're
installing domestic orcommercial there are different
separate electricalqualifications that are
available.
So there's a lot of guidance inthe mcs, which tends to is the
industry regulations and themicro generation certification
(32:37):
scheme.
I think it's mcs and they'vegot regulations on how pb
systems should be installed,what type of equipment's been
approved and, yeah, certainlypeople should be looking for
most installs are provided withan mcs certificate and that's
what home owners and people kindof should be looking for and
fire investigators should belooking for if they haven't got
it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I guess absolutely same as gas brakes really.
If you've got a gas in storeand it's the same kind of system
as fire investigators should belooking for you if they haven't
got it I guess Absolutely Sameas gas brakes really.
If you've got a gas in storeand it's the same kind of system
those fire investigators needto obviously turn up and say is
the guy competent to actuallyinstall the bit of kit that he's
installed?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, We'll come back to this a little bit later with
tips, but certainly somethingwe've always done within Fire
Investigations UK is where we'redealing with fires.
We Investigations UK is wherewe're dealing with fires.
We identify kind of industryskills and courses to update
kind of professional development.
So I am a qualified PVinstaller that when we started
doing the PV fires there wereseveral of us from FRUK then
went and did the installerscourse and we were on the roof
(33:31):
we were fitting solar panels andwe were connecting them and
there's various aspects of fireinvestigation where we've
identified kind of industrycourses that directly benefit if
you understand the systems andthe processes that you're doing
and how the installer should beinstalling them.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I'm a massive advocate for that kind of stuff.
I don't know about you, james,but I'm a very practical kind of
person.
I learned through thatpractical way and I think most
fire investigators are practicalpeople simply because of the
nature of the role.
But I think it's reallyimportant.
I've come across other expertswho on the gas side I used to be
a gas installer.
I was a heating and plumbingengineer when I first left
(34:04):
school, before I joined thepolice.
But knowing how things areinstalled and knowing some of
the pitfalls and some of theshortcuts and some of the things
that you might well have doneon site or you've seen other
people do on site, I think isreally, really useful.
So having that practicalknowledge I think is fantastic.
All credit to you and the guysat ukfi.
So fantastic that you'rekeeping it up to date and you're
(34:25):
doing that kind of stuff.
So brilliant, right?
Okay, fantastic.
Let's talk a little bit aboutukfi.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
You're obviously the past president, so tell us about
that as I said right at thebeginning, right from the day
one of my career in FIA UK, Ifound the UKFI to be a really
supportive and friendlyassociation.
That's really helped mepersonally.
So, having been involved in FIA, then chose to stand and went
for election onto the board andbeen again fortunate, I cast it
(34:53):
as since 2009, kind of servingon the board and then running
through the executive to runningas president.
So it just kind of we getinvolved in the management and
the running of the association,we organizing the conferences
and speakers that we have andprocesses like that.
So that's how I feel like beingable to kind of give back to
the association.
That's helped me and goingthrough the president doesn't
(35:16):
see us as hopefully, I've leftthe chapter a little bit
stronger and see it carrying onfor years ahead yeah, definitely
.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I mean, the year of your presidency was a very good
one, I remember.
And what happens now?
You're obviously past president, so just drop off or you just
go back to the board next year.
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
yeah, no.
So in terms of elected positionwe kind of drop off off the
board to let new people come on,certainly as past president,
and always be involved with theassociation and kind of be there
to contribute and share myexperience.
I'm still involved quiteheavily with the association
that I oversee some of the CPD.
So the UKFI has a CPDaccreditation process where any
(35:57):
third party or training providerif they're issuing fire
investigation training,predominantly in the UK, they
can come to the UKFI reassess it, have a look over it and just
kind of say, yes, this is avaluable training source and
we're happy to accredit it at anissue and a set number of CPD
hours for that event.
So I'm still kind of involvedon that side.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
If there is a training provider out there and
they want to get their courseaccredited, which obviously
gives the course credibility ifit's accredited by you guys.
So what's the process is justapplication form.
How does that?
Speaker 2 (36:28):
work the application on the website.
There's a nominaladministration charge for a
corporate course but if it'sthere's no charge to to kind of
members.
If it's kind of a toolbox talkor internal training that's
provided by a fire service, thenwe would drop the
administration charge for that.
And again, it's just arecognition that it is an
(36:49):
accredited activity and isvaluable for the number of hours
that's assessed.
So the application guidancejust concludes details of what's
being taught, who's teaching itand outcomes like that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Sure, and obviously our UK AFI accredited HCPD feeds
into the InternationalAssociation.
If you want to become acertified fire investigator,
that's right, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Absolutely so.
Again, everything that the UKAFI does, either as an internal
training event, you see, kind ofwe have tested training and I
think macaulay peter mancy kindof mentioned this as well those
that are applying for fit fireinvestigation technician or
certified fire investigatorprogram.
The us the iii looks for testedtraining hours.
(37:31):
So as the uk association wewould always recommend that all
training is tested.
I think it's slightly differentfrom the institution fire fire
engineers in the UK whichdifferentiates between formal
and informal kind of training.
So all of our UKFI conferencesthey'd be followed up with a
multiple choice and a quizthat's sent to all participants
and you would have had thoselinks to kind of participate on
(37:54):
the test and do that.
It just means that those thattake and challenge the test and
do that it just means that wecan issue those that take and
challenge the test and past thatwe are able to issue a
certificate that says they havecompleted tested training and
it's that wording thatdifferentiates the two to prove
kind of the learning outcomes ofEnvenom.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah, and I think it's useful across and again, I
probably harp on a bit too muchabout this, but it's useful, I
think stage your career in,because one if you're already a
cfi, then you have to recertifyevery five years, I think, and
if you're not a cfi, then ithelps to get you your cfi in
terms of your contested training.
And if you are interested ingraduate level, like you were,
and you haven't got any kind ofpractical forensic background,
(38:33):
that's another thing that youcan demonstrate that you've
joined the ukFI or anotherorganisation.
You've done some NAFI, forexample, and you've done some
testing and interview.
You can say what kind of shows.
To me, I'd much rather havesomeone who's got some specific
and gone out of their way to dosome individual courses and put
themselves out, rather thansomeone who's got a PhD in, I
don't know, fire engineering orsomething.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Absolutely.
Fire engineer also.
Absolutely.
I'm a huge advocate for theiii's fire investigation
technician and cfi certification, as well as the evidence
collection one, that they're allreally useful certifications.
They are hard work, they dokind of.
You have to demonstrate yourexpertise and experience, the
training that you've completed.
There's a requirement to jobspecific kind of experience of
(39:15):
giving evidence in court as well, and then it has to be retested
and re-challenged every way.
It's not just something thatonce you're issued, you keep for
life.
You have to again go throughthe process it's every five
years and it's a cfi and gothrough and show you continued
learning I think the things aswell that we've talked about
today, the new lithium ionbatteries and photovoltaic
(39:37):
systems and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
if you certified 10, 20 years ago and you hadn't had
to recertify, then those thingswouldn't have been tested.
I think it's really good,fantastic.
And what about the conference?
Is the conference coming upwith the UKFI?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yes, so we've got our two-day conference in January,
the 27th and 28th of January.
We're at the Crowne Plaza Hotelin Liverpool.
There are details on the UKFIwebsite.
The bookings are now open forJanuary.
I think we're just putting thefinal circular to kind of go
around and to be sent out to allmembers.
(40:11):
But bookings are open andrunning on the website and
there's full details of thespeaker schedule that's been
lined up.
And again, another interestinground of conference.
Or another two-day ofconference website and there's
full details, the speakerschedule that's been lined up.
And again another interestinground of conference.
Or another t-dav conference.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Um, great speakers, interesting topics and and I
think it's early bird special aswell, yeah, yeah members rate
for you fi members.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That can apply for that's until the 30th of
november.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Um, it's the early bird rate yeah, and I checked
this morning actually, becausethere's 145 tickets left on one
of them at least.
So I need to sign up and signup quick.
I've been a couple of timesI've left it too late and I've
actually met.
The places are the places andthere's no.
Once you run out, you run out.
So I encourage people to signup early, because there's been a
(40:56):
couple of years where I haven'tbeen able to go because I
haven't signed up early enough.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
No.
Again, as part of the board ofdirectors and the executive
we've been working hard toidentify bigger venues and,
again, the interesting speakersthat there's no point putting
conferences on that membersdon't want to attend.
So it is really important thatwe try and source and find
speakers that members do want tohear about.
We always put out kind offeedback forms and we ask what
(41:21):
do you want to hear about?
We get some people who actuallyoffer presentations that would
be really useful and we thinkcould be of benefit to the
association.
Others we get suggestions wheremembers say it's not my area
but I would really like to heara presentation on this, and then
that gives us the kind of tothen start looking into that and
sourcing credible speakers andand kind of delivering that.
(41:41):
But we do get quite a lotcoming back.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Members have said they want to hear, and I think
all the conferences I've been to, they're always quite diverse,
in the sense of there'ssomething there for everybody.
If it's a specific one, then ittends to be tailored, but
there's always something that'sa little bit side, that's of
interest, you think.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Oh, I really thought about that aspect of fire,
academic or research andinnovation, as well as bringing
in interesting case studies,that kind of.
Whenever we get together asgroups of fire investigators,
there's always stories that arebeing told and you learn from
these conferences by justmeeting with people and
listening and talking to themand sharing experience and
exactly helping others when theykind of say I'm not quite sure
(42:27):
about this and or askingquestions.
That I think kind of you needto ask questions if you're an fi
.
If you don't quite understandsomething, you need to ask
others and reach out tocolleagues or friends or other
industry experts to say I don'tquite understand this, what's
this?
Speaker 1 (42:41):
yeah, I mean, we all know having an ego in fire
investigation is a no-go really.
If you don't know something,say you don't know.
And I've always found and I'msure you're the same as that
people are willing to help you,people are willing always up to
help you all this to point youin the right direction if they
don't know themselves.
But yeah, it's a good community.
I think it's great community.
All right, we're sadly, james,we're running out of time, but
(43:04):
let's just get to your sort oftop tips.
If I was starting off at CSI asa fire investigator or as a CSI
or a private sector, or justcoming straight from university,
any top tips you've learnedover the years or any gadgets
that you like, anything likethat.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yes, well, certainly on the top tips.
I think again what people havesaid it's reaching out, it's
coming to conferences, it'sgoing up and introducing
yourself to people, as I say wewelcome.
We have student members for theukfi, so kind of, if you're
interested in fi, looking for acareer in that kind of look at
our student membership packagesand kind of see what options are
(43:38):
available.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
You were attending there's quite a few firms now
taking on graduates as well yeah, see, yeah, absolutely, we're
seeing more coming in.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
We're seeing fire.
There are a number of fireservices that have civilian fire
investigators now or peoplethat have transferred from CSI
disciplines into FI.
There's a few of those in theUK, but again it's just getting
out.
It's meeting people never kindof enough.
As you say, testing and takingthings apart, I'm kind of one
particularly that any firesinvolving a new type of
(44:07):
appliance or something that Ikind of haven't quite seen
before.
I'm on the online auction siteskind of trying to see if I can
get a cheap one to take apart asan example and get an
understanding of what should bewhere and things like that.
I'd recommend any FI that oneof the fundamentals is improving
your knowledge of what thingslook like when they're burnt,
and that sounds quitestraightforward, but I think I'm
(44:28):
still coming across things thatyou don't quite recognize.
When they've lost some of theirmass, they've changed shape or
say, certainly within our groupswe kind of share images of oh,
I've come across this.
It's a bit unusual, or I thinkan example.
I was on a PV fire.
I think it was last summer.
I was up in the loft and theextensive fire damage kind of
structural collapse of the roofbut was able to move safely
(44:49):
around in some areas off, and Icame across one area of kind of
melted plastic that had loads ofthin metal rods.
They almost looked like spokesof an umbrella, but they weren't
connected to anything and I wastrying to work out what these
were, whether they were parts ofa windscreen wipers from car,
but there was just too many,there were hundreds in this area
(45:11):
of the fire damage.
And so eventually, kind ofspeaking with the homeowner and
said what did you have?
I know it hasn't caused thefire, but I can't recognize it
in my directory of patterns andhe said oh, we had four boxes of
scale electrics tracks so we'dlost all the boxing, lost all
the black tracking, and it wasjust the conductors from the
middle of electrics and just thequantity they had there.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
But so that was a new one on me yeah, I think we're
lucky in the sense that we getpaid to be nosy, we get paid to
test things, we get paid to takethings apart and play with
things and understand differentthings.
One of the things I do is partof my csi training.
That I do for police is I givethem a big carpooling full of
just burnt stuff and they haveto go through it and they have
(45:55):
to identify and there's a showerpump in there.
The descriptions I've had andthe things they think this
shower pump might be, it'sfascinating, it's really
fascinating.
All right, james, thanks everso much for your time.
Is there anything else that Ialways like to mop up?
Is there anything else wehaven't covered today that you
wanted to cover and say beforewe sort of close it down?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I'm happy to field any inquiries if I haven't quite
answered anything that anyone'sgot a question about fire
investigation, fires involvingPV systems and again as well
about the III CFI or FIT that Irecently appointed as the
Proctor for Europe for the CFIcertification.
So if people are kind of goingthrough the process, then that's
like it's kind of come throughme and I'll be kind of involved
(46:34):
in the examination stage.
But certainly if anyone kind ofwants to know a little bit more
what's involved with CFI orkind of looking at it and kind
of the examples that are listedin the literature tend to be a
little bit American, if you'reafter some input of kind of how
to fill it out as a non-Americankind of, I'd be happy to help
(46:54):
with that.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Sure, and I think at UKFI they offer.
Am I right in saying they offera sponsorship?
Or you can apply to have one ayear or something.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yes, so the UKFI has got three bursaries or grants
that are available to UKFImembers.
They're not open to non-membersit's one of the perks of being
a member.
So one is CFI, fit find asupport.
If it's not kind of recognisedby their employer or their
organisation that they work withthey're really interested in
(47:26):
going through the CFI, then theycan apply.
And we've got a budget that notall applications will be
approved but certainly kind ofthe person can apply for funding
towards CFI or FITcertification through the UKFI.
Fantastic.
We've got another grant againthat UKFI members should be
aware of.
That I think for the last twoyears now the UKFI has sent a
(47:47):
UKFI member to the ITC thathappens in the States, so the
UKFI will pay for theaccommodation and the delegate
fee for attending theconferences.
There's still some expensethat's occurred on the
individual kind of travel andany additional hotels and bits.
But certainly that's enough tofind a support and try and get
more people from the UK involvedin the international that kind
(48:09):
of level.
And again there's a researchgrant available.
So those that are involved inacademic research, doing
dissertations and bits like that, again if they're a UKFI member
they can apply for some fundingto assist with that research.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
All terms and conditions are kind of on the
UKFI website and there's moreinformation there.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Brilliant.
And if I was to go for CFI,would I be tested in the UK,
James, or would I have to go toAmerica?
Speaker 2 (48:35):
No, we kind of administer tests either in the
UK or the country where you are.
There's different modes ofdoing it that if you're in the
UK you either come to me or Icome to you, or outside of the
kind of the UK it can be testedat our approved examination
center.
So certain colleges anduniversities will hold an open
exam session that's properlyinvigilated and signed off as
(48:57):
being a proper exam, but thecandidates in that hall will be
sitting a whole variety ofdifferent professional exams all
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
But we can make those arrangements as well all right,
brilliant, okay, james, thanksever so much.
Is there anything else justbefore we go?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
no, just been really enjoying.
Really enjoyed listening to thepodcast series, normally in the
car on the way to and from firescenes you'll be able to listen
to your own now yeah all right,james, thanks so so much.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I really appreciate the time and again thanks for
your input and hopefully we'llhave on again and we might start
doing a more technical serieswhere we get really in depth
onto some of the more technicalbits and pieces and less
conversational, less two mateschatting and more sort of
technical.
But we'll see how that develops.
But again, thanks ever so much,james.
Thank you so much.
Hey, thank you for listening tocsi on fire.
(49:44):
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topics on our webpage.
Remember factor non-verbal.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone, cheers.
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and episode after episode we'll
attempt to excavate the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Hi everyone, welcome to CSI onFire.
(00:26):
Just a quick couple of updatesand announcements.
I guess the CSI on Fire podcastis going to be moving to a
bi-weekly publication, simplybecause very exciting news.
I'm very pleased I'm comingback to the UK, back to my
friends and family, back to anew job.
So exciting times.
Tell you more about that alittle bit later maybe.
But yeah, just to cut down onthe cost.
(00:46):
I hope you're enjoying thepodcast and just conscious that
I'll have another full-time job,busy job to do as well.
So yeah, that's the reasonbehind that, just to make sure
that I can keep going.
Quick shout out to Scott andChastity on the InFocus Fire
Investigation.
The Fire Investigation InFFocus podcast.
Keep giving me shout outs.
So fantastic podcast.
They come out every two weeksas well.
(01:08):
Thoroughly recommend it,particularly if you're starting
out on your first kind of inrows into fire investigation.
I'm going to try and alternate,actually, so that their podcast
comes out one week and minecomes out the second.
I hope you're really enjoyingthe podcast.
Do give me any feedback, dogive me any suggested.
You want to be a guest?
You're always welcome on I'mnot sure guests, but I'm always
(01:29):
up for new guests and differenttopics etc.
And we're going to come back tosome of our old guests as well,
who I think we've got more toadd as well.
So just to also give you a shoutout about some of the
conferences that are coming up.
So the irish association fireinvestigation they've got their
conference on the 9th of october.
So that would be a cracking one, I reckon, and a good crack
after in the best irishtraditions.
(01:51):
Also to say the new south walesassociation they've got their
australian arson fireinvestigation conference on the
21st, the 23rd of october.
So again, some real massivespeakers.
Cameron novak's going to bethere as a keynote speaker.
It's going to be a reallyfantastic conference, I think,
that one.
I only wish I could go to itTheory Day, I think, on the
(02:11):
first day, or the first day, andthen a Burn and Learn on the
second day, which is alwaysfantastic.
So it doesn't matter whichstage of fire investigation
career you're at, always learnsomething from a Burn and Learn.
So yeah, just to give those ashout out as well.
Welcome to CSI Fire, fireInvestigation Podcast.
This is episode 28.
I've got a fantastic guest ontoday I've got James Aycock.
(02:33):
Welcome to the podcast, james.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you very much for havingme on.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, it's taken us a little while to match up our
diaries, but we finally gotthere, and I know you've been
busy today with kids back atschool and all that and
balancing work and home life.
So let's start with as wealways do.
Let's talk about you, james,and give us your background.
How did you get into fireinvestigation?
How you've ended up on thepodcast today, thank you so much
so.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
My journey into fire investigation and forensics
actually started when I was atschool.
If you recall, at some schoolsat the end of term last day of
the year, some of the teachersallowed you to watch a film or
bring in board games.
We had a high school scienceteacher that used to wheel in
the television into the sciencelab and he used to play us
(03:17):
forensic documentaries that he'drecorded off the TV and that
just really captured my interestright from kind of secondary
school kind of level.
So, following A-levels, I thenstudied forensic science at
UCLan as the degree and we didvarious different modules.
That was my first introduction.
We had a couple of modules thatincluded some FI practice as
(03:38):
well as some of the chemistryand bits like that that we was
looking at.
I just really enjoyed theeverything that we did prior,
that we were doing a lot of thecsi skills, and to me it was the
csi was kind of instructed to ascene where they knew a crime
had been committed and then youwere just trying to kind of put
the story together.
But with fire investigation youwere starting from the
beginning.
You didn't know what hadhappened, you didn't know
(04:00):
whether it was a crime, so youwere kind of completely and to
me it seemed to be the oneforensic discipline where you
were kind of totally digging out.
You were doing reconstructions,rebuilding in labs and taking
appliances apart, and thatreally just really interested me
.
So right from my undergraduatedissertation I chose a topic
linked to fire investigation.
(04:20):
I was looking at accelerantsand different detection methods.
That put me in touch right fromthe outset with the UKFI, which
I think it was in its firstyear of establishment at that
point, also with the kind of hadcreated links at that point,
just reaching out as anundergraduate student to the
fire college.
Following completion myundergraduate degree I then went
(04:43):
on did a master's in fireengineering at UCLan.
I wasn't at that time awarethere was a fire investigation
master's.
So fire engineering, buildingdesign, how to cope with a fire
and kind of in theory that ifyou understand how the building
should design and cope with afire then you can kind of read
it backwards to understandwhat's happened in the fire and
spread that way.
To understand what's happenedin the fire and spread that way,
(05:08):
I think, as a lot or some ofyour other kind of guests
mentioned following coming outof my master's degree I was keen
to get into fire investigationand I started speaking to a
couple of the fire rescueservices.
At that point there was nocivilian roles in FI in the UK.
Some were kind of talking thatif I joined the fire service as
a firefighter and kind of therewas a progressional route
through the ranks up to stationofficer that you might end up in
(05:30):
FI in several years time andthere was too many ifs and buts
in kind of that for me and Iwent to a few interviews that I
was being told I didn't haveenough experience of fires.
That had the academics in thatbackground but not fireside.
So then summer of 2004 I waskind of fortunate enough to kind
(05:50):
of almost do an internship atthe fire service college,
working in the fire departmentor the fire investigation
department.
We was there.
I was there setting up thecontainers for the burns.
I was there I think it wasthree quarters and the lectures,
and then when I wasn't at thefire college and during the week
I was riding with London FireBrigade and going out to shots
(06:10):
with those at the weekends andthat was really good.
And that summer I also went Ithink it was Interflam and that
was up in Edinburgh, the firescience conference.
There was also the firstsymposium of fire investigation
conference.
That was a us uk collaborationand that year it was held at
morton.
So that was great to meet allthese experienced fire
(06:32):
investigators and talk to themand from there that led to me
getting a role as a fireinvestigator within the private
sector for a consultancy andkind of my route has come on
onwards from that point of view,that kind of having joined the
consultancy and kind of my routehas come on onwards from that
point of view, that kind ofhaving joined the consultancy,
then went through quite a longperiod of shadowing another
investigator that and this iscertainly a tip that I've used
(06:55):
with other investigators I'vehelped with the training,
development of that.
My training kind of went throughdifferent stages that I was
shadowing to start with and thenyou kind of being asked
questions and asked to describethe scene, what you were seeing
to another investigator and kindof writing ghost reports, as we
called them.
So it was a second report justonly stayed in the file and once
(07:16):
kind of those ghost reportswere matching the primary
investigators report kind of,you then start to take the lead
and whilst being accompanied,you take the lead, I produce the
report and they signed off andthen that led to me kind of
being fire investigation kind ofon my own and going from there
and being sure, sure since thenand I joined fire investigations
(07:39):
uk in 2013, so being with thosefor just over 11 years now.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So that was my route to my investigation fantastic, I
think, the mentoring side of itand that ghost reporting.
I think that's really useful.
Very similar kind of exercisesthat been mentored and then
gradually over time and time.
That that's not just for thebenefit of your employer, I
guess it's also for the benefityou.
I found that really usefuldoing those ghosts and when I've
(08:05):
mentored a couple, both CSIsand FIs, getting them to do
their own set of photographs,for example, and then having a
comparison of what you've doneand what they've done and then
talking through that, I foundthat really useful both as a
mentee and also as a mentor.
Fantastic, james, and you've gotsome big names.
In UKFI and OFI UK there's somebig, big names.
I see Steve's just sort ofrejoined.
(08:26):
I don't know if it was rejoined, but yes, he's come back into
the foray, if you like.
So that's good to have Steveback on the practical side.
Solar panels so I've done acouple of solar panel jobs, but
(08:47):
fairly limited.
So once again, selfishly, I'mjust trying to educate myself
and hopefully other people willget it as well.
So solar panels what are they,how does it work?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
and we'll get into that yeah, absolutely, and as I
think you've discussed withother groups, that world of fire
investigation is constantlyevolving.
Do technologies change thingsthat you're looking at?
So when I first started wewasn't looking at lithium
battery fires, wasn't looking atPV and renewable fires, wasn't
looking at the hybrid andelectric vehicle fires, so kind
of.
As these technologies becomemore kind of commonplace, then
(09:16):
we kind of have to evolve as FIsand bring them into our skill
set.
So being involved in a fewsolar panel fires, kind of pre
or between 2011, 2015, I'mstarting to see a little bit of
a trend.
But back in 2015, the Departmentof Energy and Climate Change,
(09:38):
as it was the governmentdepartment, then became the
Department of Business, energyand Industry Strategy and lots
of kind of government changingnames of departments.
They commissioned BRE and BRE'sNational Solar Centre to
undertake a fire researchproject into kind of fires in
solar panels and fires acrossthose industries.
That was a project that was ledby BRE forming kind of research
(10:01):
of literature, standards andtraining, re forming kind of
research of literature,standards and training.
But FIUK were tasked withassisting of investigation of
live incidents, which meant wewere being deployed to a number
of solar panel fires, thedifferent types of system, from
domestic and commercial ones,and that kind of gave a real
insight of some of the issuesthat we're starting to see in
(10:22):
solar panel systems.
We all understand that solarpanels kind of comprise some
form of panels that are eitheron the roof of a property or
kind of ground mounted From.
There's some equipment,normally in the inverter, that
generates or convertselectricity converted from the
modules, and then there's someswitch or switch gear that just
regulates and allows you toisolate the array.
(10:44):
So there's different parts ofthe PV to be aware of and
different fires.
We can have rooftop fires, wecan have plant wind fires in PV.
It depends on the type ofequipment that you've got, where
it's located and parts likethat.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, so in terms of like DC, does that represent any
kind of health and safetyissues to us as fire
investigators?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yes, absolutely.
So.
There's different risksinvolved with the PV.
That it's not OK.
As soon as you switch it off onthe ground floor, the array is
obviously still generating.
As soon as you switch it off onthe ground floor, the array is
obviously still generating.
The generate is a direct arc,so a lower DC voltage can give
you kind of more of a belt onelectrocution.
So there's different ways.
You do have to be careful andobviously as fire responders and
(11:27):
fire investigators be awarethat the system may be energized
by turning off.
The isolation switches can cutor will cut the electrical
current and the flow ofelectricity through the circuit.
We could still end up with livevoltage under the system.
So you just need to be aware ofsome of the voltage that can be
there and some of the practicesto break down the voltage to
make it much safer at lowerlevels and provide safe working
(11:51):
for electrical installations.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because, well, not funny,
but it's ironic in that one ofthe big jobs I had was at
hospital.
I won't go into too muchdetails.
I'm not sure it's beenfinalized, but I put the origin
down to the fireman switch.
So the actual isolation switcha bit of research that I've done
that that seems to be fairlycommon is actually where the
switch is the isolation switch,or where the dc comes in and
(12:13):
you're trying to.
There's some high resistance orsome difference in current
there.
Is that your experiences asyou've investigated it yeah,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
There's various components.
I'm trying to go through thosethat investigators should be
aware of and consider.
But the investigators should beable to understand the system,
how the system works and fromthe fundamentals of what's
actually involved in the system.
There's a difference betweenkind of what we know as on-roof
solar systems.
So that's kind of when solarpanels are applied to
(12:43):
conventional house and you stillhave your roofing tiles, but
you normally have an aluminiumframe that lifts the panels up
over the roof tiles.
What we tend to see on newbuilds and develop developments
are in roof systems where thesolar panels would be fitted in
lieu of roofing tiles so theywould have a weatherproofing
tray or mounting systemunderneath the panels.
(13:04):
The panels seem to be a littlebit more flushed with the roof
line and then it's just beingaware of the system that that's
there.
So we don't take any singlecomponent in isolation but you
look at what is the mounting andwhat's the panel and, as you
say, the switch gear.
So as part of the project andsince then we have seen a large
number of buyers, as you say,with the dc isolators.
(13:25):
So you have, typically you havea switch on the dc isolator as
it comes in between the paneland the inverter and you would
have an ac isolator coming fromthe supply from the inverter
between the panel and theinverter and you would have an
AC isolator coming from thesupply from the inverter between
the meter inside and generation.
On the DC isolators we've seenwell general poor electrical
workmanship skills, kind ofloose connections, items like
(13:47):
that.
We have seen issues whereswitches have been incorrectly
rated.
Because the DC switch has a lotmore power, you have to use a
switch that's correctly ratedfor that level of DC current
that's put into it.
And if anyone's kind of takenoff the cover for a DC switch,
what they might see is kind ofseveral loops of a cable and by
(14:09):
switching the current throughmultiple contacts within the
switch you break down the energyof the switching arc that opens
or that occurs every time youopen and close it.
Now what we have seen is wheresome of the switches have been
poorly configured or underratedfor use or someone's even used
an AC rated switch for the DCside and at that point the
switch just kind of isn'tcapable of taking the internal
(14:32):
switching arc and that starts tobreak down and damage the
contacts, kind of arcing, andthat fuses them together and you
end up with localized heatinginside the switch.
Yeah, we've seen a few fires ordealt with fires within the
actual pv array itself, withinthe modules.
What can happen there is we seeexamples of or crimping or
(14:53):
incompatible plugs, the cablesthat come and anyone that's kind
of dealing with fireinvestigations on the array.
We'd always kind of specify youneed to try and identify what's
referred to as the string cables.
So if you picture a solarmodule, it comes out the factory
with two cables on the back ofthem and you plug that to the
(15:13):
next panel to create a seriesstring-like battery.
So you take the positiveterminal from one panel, connect
it to the negative panel at thenext panel and so forth.
You make a chain whichincreases the voltage.
The trouble is thoseconnections that get supplied on
the solar panel are factoryfitted and would have gone
through the quality assurancechecks in the factory.
But at the end of each of thosecables you'd have the string
(15:36):
connectors which have beenassembled on site and they might
not have as rigorous qualitykind of checks on those.
So always try and identify thestring, the ends of the string,
look at the quality of theconnections, the connections
that they use on there.
They have issues with, apartfrom incompatible, but also
forging or components that kindof pretend to be one brand but
(15:59):
but aren't.
And then there are cheap importsfrom china, yeah, yeah they're
not very rare, but again, justthings to be aware of.
And we also saw a lot of issuesat the time with
weatherproofing.
So where people have, some ofthe inverters are designed to be
installed outdoors and theisolator switches are designed
to be installed outside and areweather rated.
(16:20):
Numerous cables incoming inthrough a cable gland at the top
of the switch will defeat theweatherproofing and allow water
build up inside the switch.
So we've seen several examplesof those and still continue to
see those.
So there's some of the issuesthat we've seen.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Seen several examples of those and still continue to
see those.
So they're some of the issuesthat would be okay, I've got you
.
So incompatibility, and alsothey're like clipping clips,
aren't they?
They're kind of like two bitsof plastic and they clip in
together.
And I guess, making sure,installation wise, that you've
installed them correctly, makingsure that the actual quality of
the clips I guess manufacturerson their panels would state the
standard and the quality of theconnection clip, and I guess
(16:55):
that's not always followed whenan electrician comes along or
another subcontractor comesalong and maybe uses lesser
quality clips or something,always, as you say, just been
conned in the sense of he thinkshe's buying MK stuff and he's
buying some knockoff fromsomewhere else.
But yeah, that's interesting.
And of course we've got thenormal connections with
electricity and sort ofcorrosion, poor connections,
high resistance, that's allstill applicable.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, absolutely you get both of that on the DC and
the AC sides that if things havebeen poorly installed you're
going to get localised heating.
It's quite rare to get aserious fire that takes out the
array and the inverter.
But particularly on a lot ofdomestic properties in the UK we
might find that the inverterand the switch gear is actually
involved in it or installed inthe loft space, which the number
(17:39):
of fires are very, very rareand certainly I'm not looking to
kind of cause any panic.
You know that we're in anindustry where we get drawn to
fires.
There have been a very smallnumber of fires but where they
do occur, in the switch, in theinverters and in the loft, that
it's much harder.
That it's just a case ofidentifying the components that
are there, identifying thesystems and going through.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So that's quite useful to see from that sure if
I turn up at a fire scene and Isuspect that we got localized in
the roof, for example, andyou've got localized sort of
fire damage, what kind of thingsshould I be looking for?
Is there a kind of checklist?
Is there a recommended?
You've got 921 and that kind ofstuff but from your experience,
what were the sort of things,what were the steps you go
through to identify andeliminate other potential causes
(18:23):
of the fire and hone down onthe solar panel?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
yes, absolutely so.
You say all your usual methodsto consider everything else and
all other potential sources ofenergy.
You're working out where thereis electricity, what other
circuits are available, and thenit's great just to kind of go
through the system.
As I say, if you've still gotthe array you can start the well
, first checks kind of.
We always kind of carry voltagemeters and we're able to kind
(18:46):
of do checks.
I'd say to the environmentinvestigator kind of assume that
the panel is energized untilyou're confirmed that it isn't.
It's been switched off.
And I say that comes a littlebit harder if the switch gear is
inaccessible, but just kind ofassume that the cables are
energized.
I know that some fire serviceskind of will try and cut into
the cables.
By cutting those cables reducesthe strings and by decreasing
(19:10):
the number of panels that areconnected together you break
down the voltage.
So kind of each panel on itsown should be kind of putting
out 40 volts, which is muchsafer to work with than the
hundreds of volts that you canget in the long chains of solar
panels.
Trying to go through the system, identify how the string is
laid out.
If it's a conventional houseand you've got six to 10 panels
on the roof, then they're alllikely to be part of one string.
(19:32):
When start getting into the orcomplex fires and the commercial
pv fires, you're going to endup with multiple hundreds of
strings trying to working outwhere's the start of one,
where's the end of anotherstring.
And I'm working through thatway and then kind of going
through if you can access theisolation equipment, the
inverter, either if they'retotally damaged, and finally
(19:52):
we're looking kind of forevidence of connections, kind of
that we normally do with anyother electrical appliance at
that level.
One thing I quite like with thepv fires is in fi, we really
like data kind of as muchinformation we can get about
fire.
We like it when there's cctvfootage or doorbell footage of a
fire.
And what I would say is, withthe pv systems, whilst it's new
(20:15):
technology, a lot of the pvsystems that are out there are
smart systems.
So that might be a lot ofpeople.
If they're paid and invested tohave solar panels on their roof
, they're likely to have adisplay down in the kitchen or
somewhere else in the house thattells them how much their pv
system was generating at anytime if they're making money and
(20:35):
people kind of like to see thisdata.
So as an investigator, weshould be trying to source some
of that data.
It could be just a case ofspeaking with the homeowner of
the property.
If they've got cloud access,they might be able to show you
the records on their phone orsend you a computer printout of
what the panel was doing.
If they haven't got a portabledisplay or a cloud-based system,
(20:56):
then that data should still bein the inverter.
So, providing the inverter'snot totally burnt out, it will
be possible to safely re ordisconnect.
Everything can then re-energizethe inverter either in the
scene or in a laboratory, beable to connect over a laptop or
a phone or tablet device tothat inverter and you should be
able to extract the a laptop ora phone or tablet device to that
inverter.
And you should be able toextract the data log of
(21:17):
generation files, what the pvsystem was doing, data layer,
any error messages, and again,that can be really useful for pv
that when you've got multiplestrings as we see kind of rows
of the panels, you can start tosee if there was a fault with
one particular string or if itwas underperforming compared to
kind of everything around it.
So I'd always say there's awealth of data around PV panels
(21:40):
that FIs should be kind oflooking for and trying to get.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
OK, fantastic, I mean , I guess it's a bit like a fire
alarm panel in the sameinterrogation wise, but from
what you're saying and you'relooking for, what are you
looking for in terms of you'relooking for error codes, or
you're looking for one panelover a period of time generating
less electricity, or what werethe sort of things you'd be
looking for?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
just any anomalies.
Really, I think in fireinvestigation there's a lot of
kind of understanding thepatterns of kind of what's going
on and looking for changes thathave things kind of stopped
working.
And you can then use that datathat say, if you've got a large
commercial display with manyhundreds of solar panels, then
that data could help you kind offocus in on a particular area
of an array of multiple panelsthat are burnt.
(22:21):
And then that's where we woulduse our scene skills from fire
investigation that we're goingthrough and we're distinguishing
burnt connectors from thosethat are electrically damaged
and then assessing andunderstanding whether that
electrical damage is causativeor whether it's a consequence of
fire attack.
Sure, there's a little bit of adifference that with the DC
(22:42):
cables that you don't tend tohave so many short circuits that
where we have, say, in ACcables, where you have twin and
earth in the same insulation,you would have a positive and
negative short circuit, wherewith the DCs, because the
positive and negative shortcircuit where with the DCs
because the positive andnegative cables are separate
conductors is both would have tobe bridged or damaged and
(23:02):
touching for a short circuit tooccur.
But what we tend to get more ofis inline arcing.
So where a connection, either acrimp or the the mated part of
the connector starts to fall andyou tend to get a dc electric
arc kind of jumping across thatgap, that then occurs in the
conductor you tend to.
The connections are well madeand well assembled.
(23:24):
Even in severe situations youdon't tend to see inline arcing
across the connector.
The inline arcing it does tendto be an indicator of a poor
connector but like any evidence,you need to assess it with the
totality of the scene andeverything else you identify
sure, in an ac system you'dexpect the circuit breaker to
cut in and actually maybeprotect the system early.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And that's the other problem with dc, isn't it?
I'm not going to put words inyour mouth or anything, but
that's my understanding.
Correct me if I'm wrong, butbecause it's dc and, as you said
, it's constantly, there's nokind of cut out from the sun, if
that makes sense yeah, no,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
When we look at ac fires we look at where the
electrical installation comesinto a property and then you
would have the meter and thefuse arrangements going out and
then say, in uk, plug sockets,we would have additional fusing
so you can start to trace yourprotection back where in dc
again, remembering, yourelectricity is flowing the
(24:19):
opposite direction, so it's notgoing from the inverter to the
array, it's coming from thearray into the inverter.
It's kind of any fuse or anyprotection that's in and around
the inverter doesn't protect thearray.
And certainly I know that well.
You have international listersand there's different
requirements for pb installs.
America and Australia, comparedto UK, compared to national
wiring regulations.
The majority of domesticproperties in the UK kind of
(24:42):
don't have fuse protection onthe DC side and the only
protection kind of will be inthe inverter.
So there isn't that level ofprotection that's there and kind
of.
There are other systems, butagain they're not compulsory in
uk wiring megs, for you havethings like fireman switches or
rapid shutdowns which they use alot of in the us pv systems.
(25:02):
A rapid shutdown is a switchthat when it loses normally ac
power or loses the grid or itcan be linked to the fire alarm
and the fire alarm operates, therapid shutdown can shut down
the voltage, kind of at a modulelevel within the array.
Again, this technology isavailable in the UK but tends to
be more optional specificationrather than required.
(25:22):
So again, it's justunderstanding if those type of
systems are there.
The other thing just to be awareof on some solar panels they
have module inverters.
So instead of having one bigbox that then is bulky and goes
on the wall either in the loftor in a plant room, you can have
small little boxes that sit onthe back of every single module
so that converts it into ac andthen it runs the ac down kind of
(25:45):
from panel.
And again it's keeping up withchanges in technology that we
now get PV systems fitted withoptimizers, which is again is
another little plug and play boxwhich now fits in between each
solar panel you're connectingright and the optimizer that
should there kind of be someshading or drop of generation on
(26:05):
one part of a module or part ofthe array, the optimizer kind
of kicks in and adjusts theamount of electricity being
generated so the optimal amountof electricity is always coming
out of the erase.
Again, it's just anothertechnology that's included
within the erasers to be awareof, and then obviously, battery
systems as well.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Now that, yeah, into the shop have you seen, because
obviously cost of electricity,that kind of stuff.
I've seen a couple of homemadelithium battery sort of banks.
Have you seen some homemadesolar?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
yeah, we have seen some homemade battery banks that
people have put in anddisassembled electric vehicle
batteries and converted for homeuse, but there's a lot of
battery systems in circulationin the uk that don't have any
issues and, again, providingyou're using a correctly
specified and installed system,then it should run without any
problems whatsoever.
So we have seen some issueswith either poor installation or
(26:58):
, as you say, homemade batterypacks, which are never
recommended interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
One of the things I wanted to talk about is sort of
a myth really.
I think you know one of thethings especially in the uk,
even on a cloudy day, it's stillgenerating electricity.
So I've heard people say, well,it couldn't be the solar panel
because it was a cloudy day.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Total nonsense, really yeah, absolutely
obviously the amount of energyand coming out of the solar
panel it increases better on asunny day ensures as well that
you're more likely to generate ahigher amount of electricity on
a cooler day than you are, kindof a mid-summer day that's full
of sunshine.
But if the panels are startingto get too hot or starting to
get warm just through operation,that can have effect on the
(27:35):
generation as well.
So yeah, we've seen fires atkind of certain peak times of
the day, but only because thefire occurs outside of those
times.
It doesn't mean you can'texclude it.
You kind of have to understandwhat's going on and with the
system as you said, thetotalitarian effect of it all
yeah and say a lot of the issuesof poor connections and things
(27:56):
like that.
we know resistive heating isdegenerative.
There's no way of kind ofestimating or predicting the
rate of deterioration because itdepends on the oxidation cycle
of electrical connection,heating up and then cooling down
and growing kind of that way.
The more it heats up, thehigher the electrical resistance
, higher the temperature andthen it kind of goes into that
degenerative cycle.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah sure, and then it kind of goes into that
degenerative side.
Yeah, sure.
Also, I think I wanted to saythat the little bit of research
I did ready for you coming onreally, mate was just about sort
of foliage covering and thepanels being dirty and in
specific areas you can get hotspots and stuff like that.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
yeah, absolutely the solar panel should have the
protection built in them that,as you say, if they develop kind
of shading, as it's called, ifpart of the sun was blocked off,
they've got diodes into thesolar panel should be the
protection built in them that,as you say, if they develop kind
of shading, as it's called, ifpart of the sun was blocked off,
they've got diodes in.
So the solar panel should beable to balance that and it
shouldn't be a safety issue.
It just means that how yourmain energy generation is
dropping off, particularlycommercial ones, there should be
(28:54):
a regular maintenance regime.
That kind of fall.
We do electrical checks andelectrical inspection of AC
circuits and we do those in allbusinesses and commercial
properties and rental properties.
It's up to homeowners if kindof they want to do them.
But that system of electricalinstallation check doesn't kind
of cover the PV.
But you can get specialists inthat will come and do a PV
(29:17):
safety check and they'll look atsome of the temperatures, they
make sure the panels are cleanand they measure the voltages
and currents coming out thestring to make sure that's in
line with design requirements.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
certainly kind of any commercial installs should have
a regular maintenance regime inplace and hopefully that would
pick up any issues or defectsbecause before they become a
major issue and I get and Ithink the other thing to say as
well is that you know, when wego to scene, we're obviously, if
it's something of that nature,we always ask for maintenance
sheets when was it?
And also, when was the lasttime?
If someone's been in the daybefore, if someone's come in and
(29:51):
done a new install or done somemaintenance the day before,
that can also be a considerationwithin the.
Was that causative to theactual fire itself?
So yeah, good, interestingstuff absolutely it's.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
This is different levels, that a lot of the
installs on domestic propertieskind of it gets plugged in and
it runs until it stops working.
But saying that we have beeninvolved in fires where where I
was involved in one on a schoolinstallation and when we went
back and asked for data, the pvsystem had actually been offline
for a year and hadn't beengenerating.
Oh wow, okay, it was a firethat self-extinguished again in
(30:25):
an isolator switch.
I think that was detected whenthe school caretaker went up on
the roof at the end of term toclear footballs and bits and saw
one of the switches was burntout.
But when we tried to go intothe data to see what had
happened because it hadn'tgenerated for a year the system
(30:46):
was still sending a meterreading and the metering company
.
They were happy they werereceiving a meter reading, but
there was no intelligentanalysis in there to see that
the meter reading wasn'tactually changing over the
course of the year.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
How interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I hadn't thought of that and, like you say, I hadn't
really thought about untiltoday about all the data that
must be there in terms of, likeEON or somebody else, british
Gas, you know, if you have gotthat type of meter and you are
feeding solar into the grid orthey're taking that off your
electricity bill in effect, thenthey'll be monitoring that,
obviously, and that's a veryuseful kind of area of data.
And obviously we're seeing nowmore and more solar panels in
(31:15):
the uk because of the energycrisis and that kind of stuff
and global warming.
But we're also seeing massivekind of systems on the top of
supermarkets and big amazonplaces and all kind of storage
facilities that are obviouslygenerating their own electricity
and trying to save electricityand costs and also save the
planet.
So I think, do you see more andmore solar panel fires coming
(31:36):
in the future simply becausethere's more and more systems?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
out there.
Yeah, absolutely it's.
Again as a fire investigatorand this is kind of what led to
our interest in the solar panelsociety, we were certainly
seeing a rise of fires thatinvolved PV, whether it was a
fire that had started in the PVsystem or started elsewhere, or
started in a bedroom in aproperty, but gone through the
ceiling and then gone throughthe roof and then involved the
PV on the roof, certainly addinga say, an extra element to the
(32:02):
investigation and an extra areathat needs to be considered and
examined with all potentialcauses yeah, I just I imagine if
you're an electrician they'vebeen doing AC for 25 years you
probably know your stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Is there a qualification for electricians
to install?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
yeah, there are pv installers courses, the pv
electrics and depending on thesize of the scale whether you're
installing domestic orcommercial there are different
separate electricalqualifications that are
available.
So there's a lot of guidance inthe mcs, which tends to is the
industry regulations and themicro generation certification
(32:37):
scheme.
I think it's mcs and they'vegot regulations on how pb
systems should be installed,what type of equipment's been
approved and, yeah, certainlypeople should be looking for
most installs are provided withan mcs certificate and that's
what home owners and people kindof should be looking for and
fire investigators should belooking for if they haven't got
it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I guess absolutely same as gas brakes really.
If you've got a gas in storeand it's the same kind of system
as fire investigators should belooking for you if they haven't
got it I guess Absolutely Sameas gas brakes really.
If you've got a gas in storeand it's the same kind of system
those fire investigators needto obviously turn up and say is
the guy competent to actuallyinstall the bit of kit that he's
installed?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, We'll come back to this a little bit later with
tips, but certainly somethingwe've always done within Fire
Investigations UK is where we'redealing with fires.
We Investigations UK is wherewe're dealing with fires.
We identify kind of industryskills and courses to update
kind of professional development.
So I am a qualified PVinstaller that when we started
doing the PV fires there wereseveral of us from FRUK then
went and did the installerscourse and we were on the roof
(33:31):
we were fitting solar panels andwe were connecting them and
there's various aspects of fireinvestigation where we've
identified kind of industrycourses that directly benefit if
you understand the systems andthe processes that you're doing
and how the installer should beinstalling them.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I'm a massive advocate for that kind of stuff.
I don't know about you, james,but I'm a very practical kind of
person.
I learned through thatpractical way and I think most
fire investigators are practicalpeople simply because of the
nature of the role.
But I think it's reallyimportant.
I've come across other expertswho on the gas side I used to be
a gas installer.
I was a heating and plumbingengineer when I first left
(34:04):
school, before I joined thepolice.
But knowing how things areinstalled and knowing some of
the pitfalls and some of theshortcuts and some of the things
that you might well have doneon site or you've seen other
people do on site, I think isreally, really useful.
So having that practicalknowledge I think is fantastic.
All credit to you and the guysat ukfi.
So fantastic that you'rekeeping it up to date and you're
(34:25):
doing that kind of stuff.
So brilliant, right?
Okay, fantastic.
Let's talk a little bit aboutukfi.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
You're obviously the past president, so tell us about
that as I said right at thebeginning, right from the day
one of my career in FIA UK, Ifound the UKFI to be a really
supportive and friendlyassociation.
That's really helped mepersonally.
So, having been involved in FIA, then chose to stand and went
for election onto the board andbeen again fortunate, I cast it
(34:53):
as since 2009, kind of servingon the board and then running
through the executive to runningas president.
So it just kind of we getinvolved in the management and
the running of the association,we organizing the conferences
and speakers that we have andprocesses like that.
So that's how I feel like beingable to kind of give back to
the association.
That's helped me and goingthrough the president doesn't
(35:16):
see us as hopefully, I've leftthe chapter a little bit
stronger and see it carrying onfor years ahead yeah, definitely
.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I mean, the year of your presidency was a very good
one, I remember.
And what happens now?
You're obviously past president, so just drop off or you just
go back to the board next year.
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
yeah, no.
So in terms of elected positionwe kind of drop off off the
board to let new people come on,certainly as past president,
and always be involved with theassociation and kind of be there
to contribute and share myexperience.
I'm still involved quiteheavily with the association
that I oversee some of the CPD.
So the UKFI has a CPDaccreditation process where any
(35:57):
third party or training providerif they're issuing fire
investigation training,predominantly in the UK, they
can come to the UKFI reassess it, have a look over it and just
kind of say, yes, this is avaluable training source and
we're happy to accredit it at anissue and a set number of CPD
hours for that event.
So I'm still kind of involvedon that side.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
If there is a training provider out there and
they want to get their courseaccredited, which obviously
gives the course credibility ifit's accredited by you guys.
So what's the process is justapplication form.
How does that?
Speaker 2 (36:28):
work the application on the website.
There's a nominaladministration charge for a
corporate course but if it'sthere's no charge to to kind of
members.
If it's kind of a toolbox talkor internal training that's
provided by a fire service, thenwe would drop the
administration charge for that.
And again, it's just arecognition that it is an
(36:49):
accredited activity and isvaluable for the number of hours
that's assessed.
So the application guidancejust concludes details of what's
being taught, who's teaching itand outcomes like that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Sure, and obviously our UK AFI accredited HCPD feeds
into the InternationalAssociation.
If you want to become acertified fire investigator,
that's right, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Absolutely so.
Again, everything that the UKAFI does, either as an internal
training event, you see, kind ofwe have tested training and I
think macaulay peter mancy kindof mentioned this as well those
that are applying for fit fireinvestigation technician or
certified fire investigatorprogram.
The us the iii looks for testedtraining hours.
(37:31):
So as the uk association wewould always recommend that all
training is tested.
I think it's slightly differentfrom the institution fire fire
engineers in the UK whichdifferentiates between formal
and informal kind of training.
So all of our UKFI conferencesthey'd be followed up with a
multiple choice and a quizthat's sent to all participants
and you would have had thoselinks to kind of participate on
(37:54):
the test and do that.
It just means that those thattake and challenge the test and
do that it just means that wecan issue those that take and
challenge the test and past thatwe are able to issue a
certificate that says they havecompleted tested training and
it's that wording thatdifferentiates the two to prove
kind of the learning outcomes ofEnvenom.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah, and I think it's useful across and again, I
probably harp on a bit too muchabout this, but it's useful, I
think stage your career in,because one if you're already a
cfi, then you have to recertifyevery five years, I think, and
if you're not a cfi, then ithelps to get you your cfi in
terms of your contested training.
And if you are interested ingraduate level, like you were,
and you haven't got any kind ofpractical forensic background,
(38:33):
that's another thing that youcan demonstrate that you've
joined the ukFI or anotherorganisation.
You've done some NAFI, forexample, and you've done some
testing and interview.
You can say what kind of shows.
To me, I'd much rather havesomeone who's got some specific
and gone out of their way to dosome individual courses and put
themselves out, rather thansomeone who's got a PhD in, I
don't know, fire engineering orsomething.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Absolutely.
Fire engineer also.
Absolutely.
I'm a huge advocate for theiii's fire investigation
technician and cfi certification, as well as the evidence
collection one, that they're allreally useful certifications.
They are hard work, they dokind of.
You have to demonstrate yourexpertise and experience, the
training that you've completed.
There's a requirement to jobspecific kind of experience of
(39:15):
giving evidence in court as well, and then it has to be retested
and re-challenged every way.
It's not just something thatonce you're issued, you keep for
life.
You have to again go throughthe process it's every five
years and it's a cfi and gothrough and show you continued
learning I think the things aswell that we've talked about
today, the new lithium ionbatteries and photovoltaic
(39:37):
systems and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
if you certified 10, 20 years ago and you hadn't had
to recertify, then those thingswouldn't have been tested.
I think it's really good,fantastic.
And what about the conference?
Is the conference coming upwith the UKFI?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yes, so we've got our two-day conference in January,
the 27th and 28th of January.
We're at the Crowne Plaza Hotelin Liverpool.
There are details on the UKFIwebsite.
The bookings are now open forJanuary.
I think we're just putting thefinal circular to kind of go
around and to be sent out to allmembers.
(40:11):
But bookings are open andrunning on the website and
there's full details of thespeaker schedule that's been
lined up.
And again, another interestinground of conference.
Or another two-day ofconference website and there's
full details, the speakerschedule that's been lined up.
And again another interestinground of conference.
Or another t-dav conference.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Um, great speakers, interesting topics and and I
think it's early bird special aswell, yeah, yeah members rate
for you fi members.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That can apply for that's until the 30th of
november.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Um, it's the early bird rate yeah, and I checked
this morning actually, becausethere's 145 tickets left on one
of them at least.
So I need to sign up and signup quick.
I've been a couple of timesI've left it too late and I've
actually met.
The places are the places andthere's no.
Once you run out, you run out.
So I encourage people to signup early, because there's been a
(40:56):
couple of years where I haven'tbeen able to go because I
haven't signed up early enough.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
No.
Again, as part of the board ofdirectors and the executive
we've been working hard toidentify bigger venues and,
again, the interesting speakersthat there's no point putting
conferences on that membersdon't want to attend.
So it is really important thatwe try and source and find
speakers that members do want tohear about.
We always put out kind offeedback forms and we ask what
(41:21):
do you want to hear about?
We get some people who actuallyoffer presentations that would
be really useful and we thinkcould be of benefit to the
association.
Others we get suggestions wheremembers say it's not my area
but I would really like to heara presentation on this, and then
that gives us the kind of tothen start looking into that and
sourcing credible speakers andand kind of delivering that.
(41:41):
But we do get quite a lotcoming back.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Members have said they want to hear, and I think
all the conferences I've been to, they're always quite diverse,
in the sense of there'ssomething there for everybody.
If it's a specific one, then ittends to be tailored, but
there's always something that'sa little bit side, that's of
interest, you think.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Oh, I really thought about that aspect of fire,
academic or research andinnovation, as well as bringing
in interesting case studies,that kind of.
Whenever we get together asgroups of fire investigators,
there's always stories that arebeing told and you learn from
these conferences by justmeeting with people and
listening and talking to themand sharing experience and
exactly helping others when theykind of say I'm not quite sure
(42:27):
about this and or askingquestions.
That I think kind of you needto ask questions if you're an fi
.
If you don't quite understandsomething, you need to ask
others and reach out tocolleagues or friends or other
industry experts to say I don'tquite understand this, what's
this?
Speaker 1 (42:41):
yeah, I mean, we all know having an ego in fire
investigation is a no-go really.
If you don't know something,say you don't know.
And I've always found and I'msure you're the same as that
people are willing to help you,people are willing always up to
help you all this to point youin the right direction if they
don't know themselves.
But yeah, it's a good community.
I think it's great community.
All right, we're sadly, james,we're running out of time, but
(43:04):
let's just get to your sort oftop tips.
If I was starting off at CSI asa fire investigator or as a CSI
or a private sector, or justcoming straight from university,
any top tips you've learnedover the years or any gadgets
that you like, anything likethat.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yes, well, certainly on the top tips.
I think again what people havesaid it's reaching out, it's
coming to conferences, it'sgoing up and introducing
yourself to people, as I say wewelcome.
We have student members for theukfi, so kind of, if you're
interested in fi, looking for acareer in that kind of look at
our student membership packagesand kind of see what options are
(43:38):
available.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
You were attending there's quite a few firms now
taking on graduates as well yeah, see, yeah, absolutely, we're
seeing more coming in.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
We're seeing fire.
There are a number of fireservices that have civilian fire
investigators now or peoplethat have transferred from CSI
disciplines into FI.
There's a few of those in theUK, but again it's just getting
out.
It's meeting people never kindof enough.
As you say, testing and takingthings apart, I'm kind of one
particularly that any firesinvolving a new type of
(44:07):
appliance or something that Ikind of haven't quite seen
before.
I'm on the online auction siteskind of trying to see if I can
get a cheap one to take apart asan example and get an
understanding of what should bewhere and things like that.
I'd recommend any FI that oneof the fundamentals is improving
your knowledge of what thingslook like when they're burnt,
and that sounds quitestraightforward, but I think I'm
(44:28):
still coming across things thatyou don't quite recognize.
When they've lost some of theirmass, they've changed shape or
say, certainly within our groupswe kind of share images of oh,
I've come across this.
It's a bit unusual, or I thinkan example.
I was on a PV fire.
I think it was last summer.
I was up in the loft and theextensive fire damage kind of
structural collapse of the roofbut was able to move safely
(44:49):
around in some areas off, and Icame across one area of kind of
melted plastic that had loads ofthin metal rods.
They almost looked like spokesof an umbrella, but they weren't
connected to anything and I wastrying to work out what these
were, whether they were parts ofa windscreen wipers from car,
but there was just too many,there were hundreds in this area
(45:11):
of the fire damage.
And so eventually, kind ofspeaking with the homeowner and
said what did you have?
I know it hasn't caused thefire, but I can't recognize it
in my directory of patterns andhe said oh, we had four boxes of
scale electrics tracks so we'dlost all the boxing, lost all
the black tracking, and it wasjust the conductors from the
middle of electrics and just thequantity they had there.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
But so that was a new one on me yeah, I think we're
lucky in the sense that we getpaid to be nosy, we get paid to
test things, we get paid to takethings apart and play with
things and understand differentthings.
One of the things I do is partof my csi training.
That I do for police is I givethem a big carpooling full of
just burnt stuff and they haveto go through it and they have
(45:55):
to identify and there's a showerpump in there.
The descriptions I've had andthe things they think this
shower pump might be, it'sfascinating, it's really
fascinating.
All right, james, thanks everso much for your time.
Is there anything else that Ialways like to mop up?
Is there anything else wehaven't covered today that you
wanted to cover and say beforewe sort of close it down?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I'm happy to field any inquiries if I haven't quite
answered anything that anyone'sgot a question about fire
investigation, fires involvingPV systems and again as well
about the III CFI or FIT that Irecently appointed as the
Proctor for Europe for the CFIcertification.
So if people are kind of goingthrough the process, then that's
like it's kind of come throughme and I'll be kind of involved
(46:34):
in the examination stage.
But certainly if anyone kind ofwants to know a little bit more
what's involved with CFI orkind of looking at it and kind
of the examples that are listedin the literature tend to be a
little bit American, if you'reafter some input of kind of how
to fill it out as a non-Americankind of, I'd be happy to help
(46:54):
with that.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Sure, and I think at UKFI they offer.
Am I right in saying they offera sponsorship?
Or you can apply to have one ayear or something.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yes, so the UKFI has got three bursaries or grants
that are available to UKFImembers.
They're not open to non-membersit's one of the perks of being
a member.
So one is CFI, fit find asupport.
If it's not kind of recognisedby their employer or their
organisation that they work withthey're really interested in
(47:26):
going through the CFI, then theycan apply.
And we've got a budget that notall applications will be
approved but certainly kind ofthe person can apply for funding
towards CFI or FITcertification through the UKFI.
Fantastic.
We've got another grant againthat UKFI members should be
aware of.
That I think for the last twoyears now the UKFI has sent a
(47:47):
UKFI member to the ITC thathappens in the States, so the
UKFI will pay for theaccommodation and the delegate
fee for attending theconferences.
There's still some expensethat's occurred on the
individual kind of travel andany additional hotels and bits.
But certainly that's enough tofind a support and try and get
more people from the UK involvedin the international that kind
(48:09):
of level.
And again there's a researchgrant available.
So those that are involved inacademic research, doing
dissertations and bits like that, again if they're a UKFI member
they can apply for some fundingto assist with that research.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
All terms and conditions are kind of on the
UKFI website and there's moreinformation there.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Brilliant.
And if I was to go for CFI,would I be tested in the UK,
James, or would I have to go toAmerica?
Speaker 2 (48:35):
No, we kind of administer tests either in the
UK or the country where you are.
There's different modes ofdoing it that if you're in the
UK you either come to me or Icome to you, or outside of the
kind of the UK it can be testedat our approved examination
center.
So certain colleges anduniversities will hold an open
exam session that's properlyinvigilated and signed off as
(48:57):
being a proper exam, but thecandidates in that hall will be
sitting a whole variety ofdifferent professional exams all
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
But we can make those arrangements as well all right,
brilliant, okay, james, thanksever so much.
Is there anything else justbefore we go?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
no, just been really enjoying.
Really enjoyed listening to thepodcast series, normally in the
car on the way to and from firescenes you'll be able to listen
to your own now yeah all right,james, thanks so so much.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I really appreciate the time and again thanks for
your input and hopefully we'llhave on again and we might start
doing a more technical serieswhere we get really in depth
onto some of the more technicalbits and pieces and less
conversational, less two mateschatting and more sort of
technical.
But we'll see how that develops.
But again, thanks ever so much,james.
Thank you so much.
Hey, thank you for listening tocsi on fire.
(49:44):
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our webpage.
Remember factor non-verbal.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone, cheers.
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Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.