Firefighter recruits learning how to help investigators

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“We rely a lot on the firefighters when they’re fighting the fire,” explains their teacher, Adam Saturley, “to be able to tell us afterwards what they saw, what their initial impression was, if they recognized something that was a little bit different during the fire, as well as afterwards when they’re conducting their second scene survey, when they’re doing mop-up operations, did they find something or notice something that was a little bit unusual, something that they don’t normally see.”

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Saturley, a fire investigator and fire prevention officer, said a good example is fires in the past year that were found to be caused by improper disposal of smoking materials.

“Remnants of cigarettes and burn materials like that are quite common,” he said. “So, we want them to be able to recognize, is that something that we found, where would we find those, is that a really good hypothesis, or that is to say, a good reason why this fire could have happened? It’s not only based on statements that people make but we have to base it on evidence, on what we find. Evidence not necessarily being criminal nature, but what we find on scene that would help us to prove or make a determination what that fire was caused by.”

One of the recruits taking it in is Matthew Chalupnicek, an EMT for the past four years who now wants to work for an integrated service.

“Fire training is essential, I think. It’s a lot of guys’ dreams to be a firefighter since they were kids, and I just wanted to fulfill that.”

Chalupnicek said he’ll need a few years to decide if he might want to become a full-time investigator. But Saturley said that’s typically the path people like himself follow.

“Everyone that’s in the fire investigations branch or the fire prevention bureau with the city of Lethbridge were firefighters previously,” he explained. “Some, not here – some did volunteer work, like myself; some were in the military – we have one gentleman that was in the military before, that was a firefighter with them.

“So, it really helps us, the background of having some firefighting experience and taking various courses in firefighting really help us to understand some of the things that we’re teaching the new recruits now.”