CHARLOTTE — When a fire breaks out, the first priority for the Charlotte Fire Department is safety; but after the flames are put out, the department sometimes needs to call in its special investigators to figure out exactly what caused that first spark.
Channel 9’s Damany Lewis joined CFD’s arson investigators as they train to find the first flames.
Lewis and Charlotte Fire Department investigator Chad Schull circled a training area as he and others worked to put the charred puzzle together.
“We work the room from the least amount of burn to the most burned,” Schull said.
From a damaged chair, to a destroyed sofa, Schull is working to determine how the fire started.
“There is some heat, smoke damage, fire damage to the chair ... big piece of the puzzle, this door was in the closed position,” Schull says while pointing out the different parts of the training room.
CFD has 11 fire investigators, and they perform exercises like this year-round. Chief Investigator Edwin Shaver III says it’s critical that they hone their skills and stay sharp.
“We will develop hypotheses or theories on how stuff started, what ignition sources are used for those fires, how that fire transitioned from one material to the next,” Shaver said.
He says his team has investigated about 900 fires this year. Not all were determined to be arson.
“Every fire, we treat it like a crime scene, just in case it does turn into one,” Shaver said.
[ SEE MORE: Arson at Harris Teeter under investigation ]
CFD says from July of last year to now, 274 fires were deemed arson. In the previous fiscal year, that number was 293.
“We treat it like a crime scene, just in case it does turn into one. But we don’t go into it going, ‘This is a set fire.’ We let our investigation that we conduct lead us in a path of what it is,” Shaver said.
Back in the training room, Schull was able to pinpoint where the fire started.
“The only thing we got left is this wastebasket,” he said.
But if the team can’t identify the source, they can also call in their four-legged reinforcements. That includes Captain, a K-9 who works with CFD -- his job is to sniff out where a fire started, and it’s a job he does well.
This team says each investigation is methodical, and there’s no time limit. But they take pride in solving every case.
“At the end of the day, it’s you know, being able to give a little bit of closure back to those owners and occupants.”
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