ATF hosting two week fire investigation training on Redstone Arsenal

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (WHNT) — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives is immersed in a two-week fire investigation training.

News 19 first previewed this training in early August, when ATF agents intentionally set one of their two-story burn cells on fire in preparation for this training.

Now, Certified Fire Investigator (CFI) candidates as well as local and state fire investigators are spending the week learning in the classroom and digging through the burn cells, to determine how each cell was set on fire.

ATF Senior Special Agent and Certified Fire Investigator, Devin Palmer, tells News 19 that the cell he burned actually had two areas of origin, making it a challenge for investigators.

“In this case, I made it very difficult for the students to be able to determine where the origin of the fire was,” Palmer said. “So that’s kind of an indicator for our investigators, if there’s a second area of origin un-communicated from the first area of origin that may be an intentionally set fire.”

Investigators taking part in the training tell News 19 that being able to actually dig around a real burn site is about as close as they can get to a real investigation.

“They actually do burn buildings that we can then go in and examine instead of just seeing it in a classroom,” said Michael Plesniak.

Plesniak is an ATF Special Agent based out of New Jersey.

He said he is taking part in the training to further his knowledge of the investigation process.

“It’s a scientific process,” Plesniak said. “It’s about learning the process and going through and following the method so that you can accurately get the origin and cause of the fire.”

“It’s not like TV where you can just walk in and say, ‘Oh, I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I see what happened,'” he said. “We want to be able to make sure that we’re scientifically accurate so that when we do have to testify in the cases that are arsons where there are criminal charges, we can go in and we can testify that to court as experts and we can get a jury to see that, yes, we’re following a scientific process.”

21 total investigators are taking part in the “Advanced Origin and Cause/Courtroom Testimony” course.

The second part of the course will take place next week and focus on courtroom testimony.

“So in this case, they’ll take what they did out here today, then they will write a report based upon their fire scenes out here,” Palmer said. “Then next week they’re going to be in our mock courtroom up at the National Center for Explosives Training and Research, and they’ll be testifying in our mock courtroom in front of actual attorneys and judges for what they determined out here on the fire scenes.”

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