CFITrainer.Net Podcast

The IAAI and CFITrainer.Net present these podcasts with a focus on issues relating to fire investigation. With expertise from around the world, the International Association of Arson Investigators produces these podcasts to bring more information and electronic media to fire investigators looking for training, education and general information about fire investigation. Topics include recent technologies, issues in the news, training opportunities, changes in laws and standards and any other topic that might be of interest to a fire investigator or industry professional affected by fire. Information is presented using a combination of original stories and interviews with scientists, leaders in fire investigation from the fire service and the law enforcement community.

ROD AMMON: Welcome to this edition of the IAAI’s CFITrainer.net podcast. Today, in December, we’re going to have sort of a holiday treat. We’re going to do a profile or a spotlight on somebody that we’ve known for a long time who’s been, shall we say, the godfather of fire as far as I’m concerned. For me he has been anyway. Since around 1995, I’ve been working in the fire service or with the fire service and fire investigation people, and one name always came up as someone who knew a whole lot about fire dynamics and the phenomena of fire, and that is Dr. Quintiere. Dr. Quintiere is joining us today on the phone for a quick interview about what he’s done in the fire service, his contributions, and what he sees important as we move forward. So Dr. Quintiere, you’re one of the smart guys. You’ve taught and mentored a lot of people. I appreciate very much you being on the phone with us today. How are you?

DR. QUINTIERE: I’m the same, but I don’t know how smart I am, but I’ll try.

ROD AMMON: Well, I wanted you to know I have a candle lit for our interview because that was I think one of…

DR. QUINTIERE: Okay, very good, yes, maybe light two.

ROD AMMON: I think it’s – well, it’s got three wicks. It’s one of those very complex candles.

DR. QUINTIERE: Okay.

ROD AMMON: So I was looking back at some of the things you’ve done, and you’ve been well published with “Principles of Fire Behavior”, “Enclosure Fire Dynamics”, “Fundamentals of Fire Phenomena”, and you also helped us with the production of an understanding of fire through the candle experiments, which I think were originally done by Michael Faraday.

DR. QUINTIERE: Yes, he was a good guy, and I was really proud and happy to do that with you guys. That’s still a fond memory.

ROD AMMON: It was fond for us, too, and I’m going to tell you something that I’m not sure you know, and that’s that over 13,000 people have viewed that program since we put it up.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, it’s wonderful. Faraday was a genius. He was one of the greatest scientists that lived in modern times, relatively modern times, and it goes back to him, but I’ll tell you who turned me on to that. That was Rick Miller from the ATF who was fascinated with Faraday’s book on the candle and just continued to do experiments in his spare time, so Rick Miller really turned me on, and he is one of the ringleaders of getting the ATF into science. He kind of disappeared from the scene, but he was a great guy.

ROD AMMON: Well, that’s a great thing, and getting all of us in fire investigation, and I allow myself to be in that just because I get to work around you, has been a huge contribution, and I think it was really the first way that I got involved with you when we were working in interFIRE, so I think about interFIRE, and then I think about the candle experiments, and look at you – boom. Now, you’re the professor emeritus with the University of Maryland. So what have you been up to?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, I play with the Mummers. We have a big gig on New Year’s Day in Philadelphia, so look for me with the Durning String Band.

ROD AMMON: You said Durning?

DR. QUINTIERE: Durning, like turning with a D.

ROD AMMON: Okay.

DR. QUINTIERE: And then I have my finger in some research. I’ve done some research for the FAA. That’s why I had this place in Margate to kind of relax down here in the off-season, and then I do some work for the FAA, done work on batteries. That was an experience, lithium ion batteries, and then with my colleague, Peter Sunderland at the University, we have a contract with NASA to study how things burn in microgravity, so our experiment is slated to go on to the space station in a few years, and we’re going to be really proud to see that fly up there.

ROD AMMON: Wow, that’s pretty interesting.

DR. QUINTIERE: And hope that it tells us something that we don’t know.

ROD AMMON: So are the folks that you work with in the FAA – do they still have the office over in Atlantic City?

DR. QUINTIERE: Oh yeah, there’s – the FAA has a big technical center there where they do most of the work that supports their regulations, and there’s a really great fire program there that’s concentrated on aircraft fire safety. They’ve probably done the most work on lithium ion batteries, so if any investigators are interested in that group, the Fire Safety Branch has a website, and almost all of the reports are now electronic.

ROD AMMON: Nice.

DR. QUINTIERE: You can download them for free.

ROD AMMON: I was surprised to find out they were there. I guess they had a place there and in Denver when we were working with them years back.

DR. QUINTIERE: They’ve been there for ages, going back to World War 2. It used to be called NAVFAC because it was a navy facility, and I guess they were intermingled with them, but they’ve been there a long time. It’s a great laboratory, and the work that they do in fire safety is one of the best in the world.

ROD AMMON: Well, the folks that I worked with down there are awesome. We were doing some things on screeners and trying to help them teach in a virtual way how to do better screening of passengers as they came in and they had amazing…

DR. QUINTIERE: The air marshals even have a facility on their site now.

ROD AMMON: I believe it. Well, I hope someday we’ll get to work down there again.

DR. QUINTIERE: I think some of your guys might be interested in looking at fire safety and aircraft. I don’t know how many get that opportunity, but it is unique.

ROD AMMON: Okay, it’s – for us it was dealing with trying to get people to stop bringing the wrong things on a plane, and it seems like, as you’re working on lithium ion batteries, and a couple of the phones that I know have been mentioned recently, that’s getting to be an issue as well.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, even after 9/11, they still were bringing things on planes that they hadn’t really sorted out yet. It took a few years after 9/11 before they stopped bringing flammable liquids on an airplane, so there’s many issues with aircraft. You have new aircraft now made out of a composite, which is a plastic with carbon, and that’s flammable instead of aluminum that just melts. You have Malaysia Air that disappeared. It had 6,000 pounds of lithium ion batteries in its cargo bay.

ROD AMMON: Whoa, I didn’t know that.

DR. QUINTIERE: Yes, there’s stuff on the Internet about that, but we still don’t know what caused that plane to come down.

ROD AMMON: Well, and I saw the last thing that they were saying was everywhere they were searching, they didn’t think it was there, so it will be interesting to see.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, we’ll see what happens.

ROD AMMON: You know, I know you have a mechanical engineering degree, and I also read that you were the chief of NIST’s Fire Science and Engineering, but I’m trying to think about – wanted to know what drove into fire, in fire science.

DR. QUINTIERE: I lost my job.

ROD AMMON: Okay.

DR. QUINTIERE: Yes, you know I got my PhD from New York University. Then I was really happy to get a job in – outside of New Brunswick in New Jersey working for American Standard. They had a research lab there, and a couple of other people in the fire field went through that lab before me. It was just a coincidence, so I got a job there doing heat transfer work, and corporate business and research wasn’t that profitable, so a lot of corporations were cutting back the research labs that – I was one of the first to go, so looked around for a job and wound up at the National Bureau of Standards, working in their expanding fire program.

ROD AMMON: Nice, and then ended up being the chief of the fire science…

DR. QUINTIERE: No, I was chief of one division. There was a center for fire research there at one time that John Lyons put together. That was a really great experience working in that environment because that group numbered as high as 120 people. It really was pioneering some of the work in fire because no one had ever worked in it before in the US to any large extent, and it was a great experience. So then I moved up and it became one of the two division chiefs, but management was fine, but I wanted to keep my finger in the technical side of things.

ROD AMMON: Seems like you’ve always done that. I’m wondering; so at the beginning, what were some of the first experiments, or can you give an example of one of the first things you worked on?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, we were all learning at that time. I’ll tell you the truth, Rod, I didn’t know how the flame and a match worked, so even though I had a PhD in the field of heat transfer, fire is a much more complex field because not only do you have heat transfer mixed up with fluid mechanics, you have chemistry and turbulence and soot, and it’s a very complex field, so it’s hard to get your arms around it at first, but one of the first things I worked on was they started to look at the flammability of carpets because floor coverings up to about the ‘70s were mainly vinyl floors and things like that, and linoleum. And then they switched over to carpet, and they had some big fires, I think one at a nursing home in Pennsylvania, and so attention was focused on should there be a fire test for floor covering materials. Up to that point, floor coverings were kind of exempt from any fire testing. So I got to work in that territory. There was a really big effort going on, and I was working around the fringes and doing some analysis and helped even with the final test method that they put together, so that’s how I got my feet planted. It was very practical work, but there was analysis that had to be done, and it was a learning experience.

ROD AMMON: It’s funny. You know you say you didn’t know how a match worked. We just got done doing a module on thermometry, and Dan Madrzykowski, for the first time, explained to me a couple of things so that I could understand them about heat transfers and the different types of heat, and it was – it’s always so interesting to learn. So as a researcher, what did you find most rewarding in the fire investigation field?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, what happened when I first moved into the field, there were a couple of scientists with simultaneous efforts. You might remember there was a commission put together by Nixon to look at fire safety and firefighting issues.

ROD AMMON: I didn’t know that.

DR. QUINTIERE: America Burning.

ROD AMMON: Okay, yes, that I remember.

DR. QUINTIERE: So America Burning spawned some activity, and that triggered a bigger effort at what was then the National Bureau of Standards, which is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST. There was a parallel program in basic research at the National Science Foundation, and so a lot of academics were involved in that program, and they had a really good guy there at the NSF fostering this new work in fire, so it was very fundamental at the time. Ralph Long was the guy involved, and the most rewarding experience for me was to get involved at the threshold of this developing scientific area, and then see what was going on in the fundamental aspect of this field through NSF and then later at the Bureau of Standards and meet so many academics around the world and in the US that now started devoting their attention to fire. So it was a learning experience for them, but they had a lot better skills than me, so I learned from some really, really good people. They inspired me, really.

ROD AMMON: Yes.

DR. QUINTIERE: I mean there’s a person – like Howard Emmons from Harvard is viewed as a father of fire science, but if you go around the world, there’s other fathers. You have Phil Thomas in the UK. You have Kunio Kawagoe in Japan. These were pioneers that did a lot of work and directed work that led to the learning in these places, and then in the ‘70s, John Lyons helped to bring this all together at NBS. NBS was really – it was called a center for fire research, but it really became a center internationally.

ROD AMMON: Two things that are interesting to me. One is that I never thought of President Richard Nixon and tied that to America’s Burning. That’s surprising to me.

DR. QUINTIERE: No, that was a republican-based committee.

ROD AMMON: And I also think that I – me and my little world, we think of you as one of the godfathers of fire. As a matter of fact…

DR. QUINTIERE: No, no, no, it – I’m just an intermediary. There were some great people. People like Phil Thomas was doing work in the ‘60s, and someone once said, and this is actually true, that Phil Thomas worked on every problem in fire research from a fundamental point of view before anyone else. So new students in this field don’t go back far enough in the literature because some of these electronic databases stop at 1970 or something like that, but there was some fantastic work, and the British had a fire lab called the Fire Research Station. It sounds like a fire station, but it’s a research laboratory, and if you look at some of their annual reports, you would be really amazed at not just what they did, but how they all put it together in a layman’s presentation as an annual report. It’s really – there’s some of these things that still lie around some libraries.

ROD AMMON: So in other words for somebody to get these, you’re saying that a lot of them have not been digitized, or they aren’t available on the Internet yet.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, actually the old fire research notes are now available for free. Phil Thomas and Kunio Kawagoe and others – we form the International Association for Fire Safety Science. It’s a mouthful, International Association for Fire Safety Science, IAFSS. It’s the organization that exists today that tries to assemble research every three years for presentation and discussion, and the executive office now has all those proceedings for free on the Internet, so anyone could download them. And in addition, they also have all of the British old reports, the fire research notes, and they could download them, too. So anybody listening to this, go to IAFSS.org, look it up, see what you can get for free, join. You don’t have to be a scientist. This is open to everybody, and you’ll see what’s going on around the world today. Unfortunately, the – I would say over the last 20 years, we’ve gone away from fundamental work, and we’re just kind of solving problems and applying old techniques.

ROD AMMON: You’ve been saying that for years to me, that we need to do more.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, it’s 20 years. Yes, it’s 20 years.

ROD AMMON: So…

DR. QUINTIERE: It’s – I think other people see that, too, maybe not the new people in the field within that 20-year span, but the people that look back see that the work had a different tinge to it. Today, CFD modeling seems to be the cure-all, but underlying CFD modeling, there’s problems that are very fundamental and you have to look at them closely before you can confidently make a simplification that is easier to use.

ROD AMMON: Understood. So that gets to data in some cases, and one of the questions I had for you was, as someone who’s been around investigation, you and I have had some conversations, and I’ve heard you a little frustrated with some things involved in investigation or in data that you might have been able to get. What have you done to get better data yourself, or what have you done to get over some of the frustrations that you’ve had, or maybe they still exist?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, I don’t know how I classed my frustrations when we talked in the past, but you know the development of the ATF Fire Lab is a big accomplishment. I don’t think that’s supported sufficiently. I think the work they do is superb, and I wish that they had vehicle to get that work out to the fire investigator and others so it would just not be a laboratory in a background but something that comes to the forefront and produces reports that people can benefit from. The fact that that was not built on the campus of the University of Maryland is probably one of my biggest disappointments because it was by president order to be built on the university campus, and politically it got all screwed up.

ROD AMMON: Sorry to hear that.

DR. QUINTIERE: I mean that was a loss to both ATF and the University of Maryland, so that’s something that’s not good. When you say data, I think more of research treatises and reports, and today, it’s Google. I mean you can get almost anything or you can find evidence of something from Google. You could either get the document or find out where it might be, so there’s – the time of going into a dusty library shelf and combing through books and index cards is over. I mean these search machines have leveled the playing field. I mean more than just in fire, but – so I think that the data and research information is quite accessible. The fundamental nature of the work in fire, maybe it’s not fully there like it was in the ‘70s, but it’ll come back. I mean there’s bastions of work now.

China has about two dozen institutions, academic institutions working on fire. They have a big program. They have a whole university academy that allows people to get degrees in engineering related to firefighting, fire investigation, fire regulations, fire engineering. So the world is changing. It’s globalizing, and there will be other places around the world where we have fire. There’s a meeting coming up in San Francisco. There’s some fire investigation work in that. It’s called a fire and materials meeting. That meeting is sponsored by a UK organization. If you look around and you try to find where is there a key meeting on fire research in the US, you’d be hard-pressed to find one other than that one.

ROD AMMON: I know there’s some work going on over at UL with Dan Madrzykowski and his folks.

DR. QUINTIERE: There’s work going on, but it’s much more limited. In other words, the fire program at NIST was 125 people in the – by the end of the ‘70s. Now, it’s 25.

ROD AMMON: I think we’re all running a little leaner than we care to.

DR. QUINTIERE: I mean look – and the field has expanded enormously in terms of its scope and people interested in it, but people trying to do the work that advances the field is not there, and IAAI will have their meeting, and they’ll present some research-type work, but there’s really no academics in the US and government agencies. There’s no prime meeting in the US leading this anymore.

ROD AMMON: It seems even in higher education I see so many colleges, universities, all kinds of places of education that are driving education and fire investigation towards certificates or towards degrees, but you’re right. I don’t hear much about research.

DR. QUINTIERE: Yes, and those degrees are capitalizing on the information that was developed in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so they’re teaching that material now. That’s wonderful. I mean that’s why I went into the academic world to transfer that information, but we need to, as a country, invest in this field. I mean fire has one application in investigation, but fire controls commerce through regulations, and it tries to get the right safety requirements in facilities, buildings, aircraft. You want to do that right, and you want to do that in the most efficient way, and you want to do that in a way that doesn’t hamper commerce.

ROD AMMON: So what’s the argument since we’re on the topic, and then maybe we can move on to something else, but I mean what’s the argument to government, to private sector hearing it from somebody like you with your credibility? How do you argue for better and more research?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, you might say it’s not a national government job, but if you look at the field of fire, there’s not one corporation or one state entity or even government agency that could carry the ball properly. It’s too small, so you need a national presence dealing with fire for efficiency’s sake and to make progress. That’s why you had America Burning. There was a research component to that as well as the development of the US Fire Academy and getting better statistics, so you need to have that consciousness going on at a national level. Other countries, fire is more in the national scope.

ROD AMMON: And they’re probably dealing with problems that we had years ago, so it’s…

DR. QUINTIERE: No, no, no, no the world is dealing with the same problems today. I mean just an example: if you have a material and it has to pass a flammability test to be sold, the flammability tests number into the hundreds, and every agency in the US, every jurisdiction has a slightly different test that you go around the world, those tests change. If you’re a manufacturer trying to sell your product globally, you have to deal with this whole morass. Why the heck can’t people settle on one approach? Now, who’s going to make that justified? It has to be some underlying science and technology.

ROD AMMON: Right, makes sense.

DR. QUINTIERE: But who’s going to keep it the way it is? People that don’t want to rock the status quo.

ROD AMMON: I mean we can’t – it doesn’t seem like we can even get it consistent across the states, and you’re talking about the globe, so I know, for instance, in California, we think we have such strict standards in so many things, and then meanwhile we end up with another warehouse fire.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, there’s always going to be fires. Fires are rare events. There’s always going to be something that goes wrong, and in that case, you bring that – I mean you go – that’s like the Rhode Island Nightclub Fire. Where were the inspectors? Why doesn’t fire prevention come to the forefront?

ROD AMMON: I guess there’s just a lot of priorities going on in these cities, and it’s…

DR. QUINTIERE: No, they don’t have the capability. They don’t have probably the knowledge base. They don’t have the money.

ROD AMMON: So you’ve been involved in some pretty large-scale investigations from what I remember, either involved in the investigation or researching it afterwards. You want to talk about one or two?

DR. QUINTIERE: World Trade Center.

ROD AMMON: That might have been one I was thinking of.

DR. QUINTIERE: See, now I wasn’t involved in that in any financial way. I mean no one signed me up so that I would pay – get paid to do some work.

ROD AMMON: So how did you get involved?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, like everyone else, I watched it happen. I was actually at FLETC at the ATF facility there, getting ready to teach, and actually I had some work to do during that time. So I was looking at this from the side really, and I was put on a committee that the American Civil Engineers put together to go to New York and start an investigation. And they had – I wasn’t on the site team, but I was on the second team, and I was getting emails from them, and between those emails and looking at the newspapers and seeing what some so-called experts were saying. It really drove me to speak out, and then when I spoke out, I got involved with some of the family members who wanted me to give them some advice, and I kind of stuck through that, and then I watched the whole investigation unfold, ultimately going to NIST, and I sat through all their meetings to see what they were going to do.

And then in the end, I was pretty disappointed, and if anyone goes to the testimony of the House Science Committee that got the final report from NIST, they’ll see that the first speaker before NIST got on the podium was Sally Regenhard, one of the family members that lost her son, and she was singularly up front, and the committee was asking her what she thought. And you’ll really get an earful if you look at her testimony because she was not happy with what NIST did, and I could point to what appear to be errors in what they did. But – so that’s another frustrating side of things. I don’t reach the same conclusion that NIST did, and their conclusion seems to blame totally the airplane. My conclusion blames the people that put the – decided on how much insulation to use on the steel.

ROD AMMON: I remember that.

DR. QUINTIERE: Those two conclusions lead to different implications, and so they’re – that’s it in a nutshell. There’s more to it than that. I mean from a fire investigation standpoint, why would you take all the steel, distribute it around the country for little souvenirs, sell most of it to Korea, and not segregate it out so that you would have the steel on the fire floors as forensic evidence from which you could learn the temperature the steel got to, which would be very important to tell you about how and why this thing collapsed? Now, why wasn’t that done? And there were people screaming to do that, me included. This guy, Professor…from Berkeley – he got kicked off the committee, and I didn’t get any more emails after that.

ROD AMMON: Wow, I remember you talking about that, and I remember the frustration, and I’ve thought about it a lot off and on, and I remember walking past the NIST building and seeing a lot of twisted metal with numbers on it.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, NIST got that stuff afterwards. They called me up. They said, well, should we get this stuff? I said, look, you don’t have the right steel. Get whatever you can. Maybe something is in there. So they got a truckload, but I mean the steel was marked, so when they were pulling out those – the big items, you can go directly across from the new World Trade Center in Jersey City, and you can look directly at the new World Trade Center, and right there, there’s a big steel column piece, and it’s marked, and so from the marking on it, the number on it, people knew where it came from. So as they’re taking that stuff out, all they had to do was look at it or look at it when they got to the fresh kills dumpsite and then segregate it out. I mean why – I mean you had a former prosecutor as the mayor of New York at that time. We wrote to the Department of Design and Construction in New York. There were newspaper articles written on this about why it wasn’t being done. It never got done.

ROD AMMON: Do you think it was just the mass? I mean to me, I just feel like it was just the overall experience and the effect on the entire area, the people, the geography, the business, everything about it. It seemed to be so big.

DR. QUINTIERE: No, I don’t think so because, look, there was an emotional reaction to this whole thing, but then there’s – there needs to be – for any intelligent group looking at this, there needs to be a thoughtful reaction to this. An investigation was not on the forefront. NIST didn’t get any money for this until a year later, so they didn’t even know they were going to get any investigative responsibility. The 9/11 Commission wasn’t signed off on until a year later. I mean if you look at the response to national disasters in this country or other countries, it’s I think a lot quicker. If you look at the process of litigation and what that brings to the table, litigation was avoided in this case, so there were no – there was no investigation in any depth any place except in NIST and for the building. You had the 9/11 Commission, but the 9/11 Commission had to end in, I think, 18 months. The NIST thing went on for about five years. Who the heck cares about a report five years later?

ROD AMMON: Boy, and you know I can’t think of a larger case of having to collect evidence and secure evidence.

DR. QUINTIERE: Right, right, I mean there was a guy screaming at me. He’s the guy that worked for Siemens and had the contract for the building-monitoring system. He was screaming at me off the emails, why isn’t anyone looking for these little electronic boxes that he said would have survived the crash and the fire? He said that would tell you what the sensors were reading during and before the fire.

ROD AMMON: Wow, I never knew that.

DR. QUINTIERE: And I sent all that out, and it was like nothing came back. I mean maybe I wasn’t forceful enough but…

ROD AMMON: Or maybe they just didn’t see the end game.

DR. QUINTIERE: I mean this guy was screaming and yelling. I mean he said somebody should get these – this – these electronic boxes. It was like the black box on the airplane because it would tell you the smoke alarms, the temperatures in the building, the heating and ventilating system, all of that.

ROD AMMON: Wow.

DR. QUINTIERE: And so you would get information, and anyone knows that in a fire, these records lead to certain conclusions.

ROD AMMON: So I guess…

DR. QUINTIERE: If they’re analyzed. So I have a lot of frustration with regard to that. There’s been – I have appeared on two documentaries, one in France and one in Germany, that tried to follow this up. There’s been scant activity in the US. Every once in a while, you’ll see some new documentary. I think the last one was by Discovery Channel.

ROD AMMON: I was thinking NOVA. Didn’t NOVA do one?

DR. QUINTIERE: That was early on I think, but somebody did something recently where these two physicists in New York figured out why the building fell down so fast, and they did it by paper and pencil, and they confirmed their calculation. But then they went off and they said that they thought there was an explosion due to aluminum melting and interacting with water, which is too far out. But there’s a lot of conspiracy theorists that say the building was taken down by charges planted in the building by the Bush administration. You could see where…

ROD AMMON: I think sometimes people just want to move on, and it loses priority.

DR. QUINTIERE: People want to move on. I mean I knew the reporters from the New York Times that worked this, and they just said, Jim, it’s old news. Forget about it.

ROD AMMON: Well, one thing you can’t forget about is the fact that when fire investigators go to a fire, they need to secure the scene, and they need to keep in touch with every bit of evidence that they can, and I guess…

DR. QUINTIERE: Look, the ATF was thrown out of the Pentagon by the FBI because they were telling the FBI to secure the scene and keep the evidence where it was.

ROD AMMON: I wasn’t aware of that. I do know that Mike Bouchard had been involved with…

DR. QUINTIERE: Yes, he wrote a report. I probably published…

ROD AMMON: Say that again. I’m sorry.

DR. QUINTIERE: He wrote a report on this, after-action report. It’s probably published.

ROD AMMON: Okay.

DR. QUINTIERE: I mean why – you have to – why didn’t the ATF guys go to New York and try to help out? They were key in the ’93 bombing. They found the truck with the New York bomb squad.

ROD AMMON: I remember that.

DR. QUINTIERE: Why didn’t NTSB play a role in the investigation? They usually write a report and tell you what happened publicly.

ROD AMMON: I don’t know, but I guess we’re leaving some questions for people.

DR. QUINTIERE: The FBI said you’re not on the scene. This is terrorist activity. It’s our job. We know this was arson. We don’t need ATF, and that’s it, so you had no ATF involvement, the best national force for fire investigation. You had no NTSB involvement, the best investigative group in the world probably for air crashes and incidents like this, and they were not involved.

ROD AMMON: I didn’t know that. That surprises me.

DR. QUINTIERE: There’s no NTSB report.

ROD AMMON: Wow.

DR. QUINTIERE: And one of the issues is that NIST claims that when the airplane went through the building, it knocked off all the insulation. Read their report. They said that 45 of 49 columns in the center had all of their insulation removed. I think NTSB would have to have something to say about that, whether that’s plausible or not.

ROD AMMON: Very interesting.

DR. QUINTIERE: I mean NIST came to that conclusion after people on their advisory panel told me that NIST couldn’t figure out how the building came down, and then they – by taking the insulation off the core columns, they jiggled up something, but that’s a real stretch. I mean I don’t know if you’re going to play all this back on your podcast.

ROD AMMON: I’m sitting here going, man, I knew there were some things that happened. You know, I think it’s very interesting, and I think you bring up a lot of good questions, and that’s classic of a researcher to be looking for answers and trying to get information.

DR. QUINTIERE: Two years ago, NIST finally published in the open literature their report, so when they publish it in the open literature, you can now write a letter to the editor. Now, who wrote a letter to the editor? Me and one of the former people on their advisory panel.

ROD AMMON: And how did that go?

DR. QUINTIERE: Oh that’s a story in itself. The journal that published their report in the end wanted to redact half of our letter to the editor, so we went to a different journal.

ROD AMMON: And why did they want to redact it?

DR. QUINTIERE: You’ll have to ask that editor.

ROD AMMON: Okay, I’m not sure – you know here I wanted to spotlight on some of the things that you’ve been involved in, and I know that this was a big deal. I think just the fact that with your credibility and with your desire to see future things like this have – I don’t know – be handled like any scene, like any crime scene or fire investigation scene, I’m hearing your clearly that there are things that we could have done to secure more and to do better research and to find better answers, but I appreciate that.

DR. QUINTIERE: You know like – you know witnesses’ stories are real important.

ROD AMMON: Right.

DR. QUINTIERE: NIST had to get special permission until they – to interrogate any people. I think it took them two years before they could do that.

ROD AMMON: Wow, and I guess in NIST’s case, they would be doing informational interviews sort of.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, NIST had their lawyers working as defense lawyers.

ROD AMMON: Wow, so…

DR. QUINTIERE: There’s – one guy – there’s a guy whose name is – they’re drilling through the wall now.

ROD AMMON: They’re coming to get you.

DR. QUINTIERE: There’s something on the Internet. This guy put together a story, and he’s a journalist from California, but it’s in the background. No one cares about this anymore, but we did go to war over it.

ROD AMMON: Something tells me people do care. I don’t know. I can imagine that now that we’re at this point, it would be difficult to really raise it up again, and I’ve heard some of the arguments that you discussed about insulation, so I don’t think all was lost there, and I’m grateful for you sharing this story.

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, what I would have hoped for is someone just take a look at what I’m saying and take a look at what NIST has and maybe make a judgment because if I’m right and they’re wrong, then they really screwed up.

ROD AMMON: Well, that’s above my pay grade I think is what guys in my business say often.

DR. QUINTIERE: What can I say?

ROD AMMON: It’s interesting. Well, you took this from a piece where I wanted to highlight some of your work into a pretty in-depth story of a huge challenge in investigation, so I guess I sort of want to shift away a little bit and wrap this up and get from you some things from what you’ve learned and from your research and from things as large as the World Trade Center. What do you want to communicate to investigators as a researcher?

DR. QUINTIERE: Well, keep demanding that science underlie their technology and keep learning because I think the investigators have made the biggest push into the science of the field, and they’re the biggest promoters of it, and I think that they should stay that way, and they’ll be driving the field. I mean this meeting now in San Francisco, fire materials meeting, has the whole section now with regard to fire investigation, so it shows that fire investigation is moving into the area of research and developing new knowledge and all of that’s good.

ROD AMMON: Well, good. You’ve given me hope. I appreciate that.

DR. QUINTIERE: There’s hope. There’s hope.

ROD AMMON: And I often say to my wife…

DR. QUINTIERE: The Chinese will save the field.

ROD AMMON: I often say to my wife – she’s like, God, you’re so critical about some things, and I say well, you know, some of the greatest criticism is also surrounded sometimes by the greatest hope.

DR. QUINTIERE: Sure, the field has moved enormously. It’s made really progress. I’m just – I was fortunate enough to be in the right place and to be associated with the field and people in the field and investigators, researchers. It’s been a wonderful life experience.

ROD AMMON: It’s – it really has, and I’ve got to tell you personally it helped me and my company. It helped my company obviously by having business that we were able to do by developing these networks to teach online with…

DR. QUINTIERE: You guys do a good job.

ROD AMMON: Thank you.

DR. QUINTIERE: What you’ve done for IAAI, with CFITrainer, that’s fantastic.

ROD AMMON: Well, that wouldn’t have happened without that great network of people including yourself, and when I think about all that, I am very grateful, and I’m excited about the fact that it’s an industry where people spend a lot of time learning and they’re hungry to learn so…

DR. QUINTIERE: Yes, and you can remember IAAI was party to a suit where they wanted to stop this thing about science and experts, and they really changed 180 degrees.

ROD AMMON: Interesting.

DR. QUINTIERE: So that’s a big, big plus. That organization has done great work to integrate science into the field in a way that’s not threatening to the investigator and helps them learn like through your work, and so it’s fantastic.

ROD AMMON: Well, I’m very grateful for your time, and I want to thank you for a lot of the people that I bumped into or the people who originally introduced me for all of your work in writing and teaching. From what I’ve learned, you’ve helped everybody in this industry have a better understanding of fire, so thanks for your time.

DR. QUINTIERE: And now my main priority is to get my routine down for the Mummers and be successful in this New Year’s Day parade.

ROD AMMON: Well, I – the last time I saw you move, I think it was at Rock ‘n Bowl in New Orleans, and you could move then, so we’ll all look for you.

DR. QUINTIERE: All right.

ROD AMMON: Thanks very much for your time, Dr. Quintiere.

DR. QUINTIERE: Bye-bye, bye-bye.

ROD AMMON: Bye-bye. Well, that’s about it for our podcast this month. Once again, we want to thank Dr. Quintiere not only for his time today but for his contributions to fire science and more specifically to the fire investigation field.

Well, today’s podcast went a little bit long, but considering Dr. Quintiere had a lot of interesting things to say, we just decided to let it roll, so even though we’ve been trying to cut the podcast down under 30 minutes, once again, I hope you enjoyed the longer format today.

By the way, we’re also looking for your feedback if you’ll notice on the podcast page. I know some of you listen on the Apple podcast, but you also – I think the majority of our people listen just online, so if you could, take a look under the player now. There’s a feedback box, and we’d like to hear what you have to say about the show or if you have any comments or suggestions for content that we might cover in the future, we’d appreciate hearing from you.

Hope you all had a beautiful holiday together with your families and friends, and hope you have a great new year. For CFITrainer.net and the International Association of Arson Investigators, I’m Rod Ammon.

2024
IAAI Investigator of the Year Case Study - This month, the CFITrainer.Net podcast welcomes Captain Chase Hawthorne of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal to talk about the bizarre case that won him the 2023 IAAI Investigator of the Year Award.
NEWS ROUNDUP: March 2024 - News Roundup - March 2024
Discussing Mentorship from Both the Mentor and Mentee Perspectives with Steve Avato - We discuss mentorship, from both the mentor and mentee perspectives, with Steve Avato, retired ATF Supervisory Special Agent CFI and Fire Marshal Captain with the Loudoun County Virginia Fire Marshal’s Office.
A CONVERSATION WITH SPECIAL AGENT ADAM ST. JOHN AND CAPTAIN CRAIG MATTHEWS - Today, we’re taking a deep dive into fires where the ignition was associated with CSST — that’s corrugated stainless steel tubing.
Laboratory Analysis of Fatty Acids, Oils, and Alcohols with Laurel Mason and Doug Byron - Today, we’re talking about using a lab in your investigations. More specifically, we are going to talk to two experienced forensic scientists about analysis of fatty acids, oils, and alcohols.
The Role of Metallurgical and Materials Science in Fire Origin and Cause Determination. - We’ve got something new and pretty interesting for you today — a closer look at the role of metallurgical and materials science in fire origin and cause determination. Our guide into this world is Larry Hanke.
What's new at the National Fire Academy - A conversation with Kevin Oliver on what’s new at the National Fire Academy.
2022 IAAI Investigator of the Year - Today we're talking with Fire Arson Investigator Nicole Brewer of Portland Fire and Rescue in Oregon. Investigator Brewer was named the IAAI Investigator of the Year in 2022
Multi Unit Multi Fatality Fires - This month, we’re tackling a tough topic on the CFITrainer.Net podcast.
NFPA 1321 is coming in 2023. Are you ready? December 2022 - In 2023, NFPA will release a new standard, NFPA 1321: Standard for Fire Investigation Units. We preview this standard on the newest episode of the CFITrainer.Net podcast.
Spoliation: What You Don't Know Can Jeopardize Your Investigation November 2022 - Attorney Chris Konzelmann Discusses Lessons Learned from Recent Litigation
The Internet of Things: September 2022 - Welcome to the CFITrainer.Net podcast. Today, we're talking about the Internet of Things. You're going to learn what that is and why it's an important investigative tool you might not be using.
News Roundup: July 2022 - This month on a new episode of the CFITrainer.Net podcast, we’re talking about fascinating news that’s crossed our feed recently.
June 2022 - On this month’s CFITrainer.Net podcast, we're going to get into an issue that seems to be increasing in regularity, and that's warehouse fires.
Fire Investigator Health and Safety: March 2022 - This month on a new episode of the CFITrainer.Net podcast, Dr. Gavin Horn, Research Engineer at UL's Fire Safety Research Institute, and Jeff Pauley, Chair of the IAAI’s Health & Safety Committee, discuss the latest research on fire investigator health and safety.
NFPA 1321: New NFPA Standard Affecting Fire Investigation Units: January 2022 - On this month’s CFITrainer.Net podcast, we talk with Randy Watson, chair of the technical committee for NFPA 1321: Standard for Fire Investigation Units.
December 2021 - On this month’s CFITrainer.Net podcast, we look back at 2021 and how CFITrainer.Net evolved to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and rapidly changing technology.
October 2021 - Welcome to the CFITrainer.Net Podcast. It's been a while since we've done a news round up so today we're covering some new research and fire investigation cases.
Fire as a Cover for Murders and Gender Reveal Fires: September 2021 - This episode we talk to Texas Ranger Sergeant Drew Pilkington about incendiary fires as a cover for murder and we discuss a tragic quadruple domestic violence homicide.
May 2021 - As part of National Arson Awareness Week, CFITrainer.Net has a new podcast exploring the week's theme, "Arson During Civil Unrest."
December 2020 - On this podcast we talk to Bobby Schaal about the new Fire Investigation for Fire Officer certificate and then we offer a brief update on an investigation in Stowe, Vermont.
August 2020 - This month we talk to a legend in the fire investigation field, Dr. Quintiere, sometimes known as Dr. Q. He has a rich experience in the fire service dating back to the 70’s, and he is working on fire in micro-gravity today.
July 2020 - July '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this new episode of the CFITrainer.Net podcast, Scott Bennett, talks about the fascinating case he and Mark Shockman worked that won them the IAAI Investigator of the Year Award. You won't want to miss our conversation. And, new IAAI President Rick Jones stops by to discuss what he is excited about for IAAI's growth this coming year — there are a lot of innovative and valuable initiatives on the way.
June 2020 - June '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this month's podcast we interview Doug Byron, President and Senior Forensic Chemist from the FAST lab about fats and oils and spontaneous combustion, and how they are involved in fire investigation. After our interview with Doug, we offer some thoughts on your job and the COVID-19 situation.
May 2020 - May '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. Join us this month for a new podcast where we talk briefly about online learning that is available and then we speak with Dr. Peter Mansi, Past President of the IAAI.
April 2020 - April '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month on the Podcast we interview President Barry M. Grimm from the IAAI and talk to Wayne Miller, Author of "Burn Boston Burn -The largest arson case in the history of the country.
March 2020 - March '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month on the Podcast we talk about some resources for COVID, updates from the IAAI and talk with a fire Marshall in New Hampshire about challenges in their region related to Sober Homes.
February 2020 - February '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast follows along with our technology theme. We look at social media’s effect on some fire investigations and then we talk with Mike Parker about his work with social media while at the LA County Sheriff’s Department.
January 2020 - January '20 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast gives you updates on Australia’s wild fires and an investigation and arrest tied to a large New Jersey fire. We also talk with Zach McCune from Rolfe’s Henry about a case study and course that he and Shane Otto will be leading at ITC this year. Zach talks about an arson fraud case and how spoofing and masking technologies were used to frame an innocent mother and perpetuate an arson fraud.
December 2019 - December '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In under ten minutes this podcast offers a review of 2019 milestones and new content and features that you might have missed. We also give you a quick preview of what to expect in 2020.
November 2019 Podcast - November '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we learn about two new technology solutions being studied for fire investigation and then we visit with Lester Rich from the National Fire Academy
October 2019 Podcast - October '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this podcast episode, we’re back for the second part of the CCAI live burn training event — the actual burn and post-fire.
September 2019 Podcast - September '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we travel to San Luis Obispo where we were hosted by the California chapter of the IAAI (CCAI). We had a rare opportunity to experience what it’s like to set up this training and experience a wildland burn in California. There was a lot to learn!
August 2019 Podcast - August '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's CFITrainer.Net podcast is under 15 minutes and offers information about fires in electric vehicles and what you need to know.
May 2019 Podcast - May '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this month's CFITrainer.Net podcast, you'll hear from ATF Special Agent Chad Campanell, who will discuss how ATF can assist state and local fire investigators with training and investigations, ATF resources available to fire investigators, and ATF's support of CFITrainer.Net. Also, we summarize the final report of a multi-fatality fire at a senior living community in Pennsylvania, where ATF cooperated with state and local investigators to reach conclusions.
April 2019 Podcast - April '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. There are two new additions to CFITrainer.Net! A new podcast with Dan Madrzykowski from UL speaking about ventilation and Fire Flow, and a new module called “Fire Flow Analysis”.
March 2019 Podcast - March '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast includes updates from the IAAI related to the election, the upcoming ITC, and a new website specifically about evidence collection. After the updates, you will also hear some news stories related to fire investigation.
February 2019 Podcast - February '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month take 10 mins and hear some fire investigation and IAAI news.
January 2019 Podcast - January '19 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we’re looking back on some of the biggest issues in fire investigation in 2018.
November 2018 Podcast - November '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we talk with Jeff Pauley from the IAAI’s Health and Safety Committee. Jeff is an IAAI-CFI and the Chairman of the Health and Safety Committee. In this podcast, he talks about ways to reduce exposure to carcinogens related to fire investigation. By listening, you will learn about ways to reduce your risks, learn about new resources that are available to assist you, and research that is coming soon.
October 2018 Podcast - October '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month meet and learn about IAAI’s new Executive Director, Scott Stephens and plans for the future. After that interview, hear some wild stories from the national news related to fire investigation.
September 2018 News Roundup - September '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts.
Short stories related to fire investigation - June '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. Join us for a brief Podcast that includes five minutes of short stories related to fire investigation.
What you need to know about Arson Awareness week - April '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we welcome Tonya Hoover, the Superintendent of the National Fire Academy. Superintendent Hoover came to the NFA with more than 20 years of experience in local and state government, most recently as the California State Fire Marshal.
Growing pot and earning Bitcoin can start fires? - March '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this month’s podcast, hear a story about how the Bitcoin business might be causing fires? What similarities are there between Pot growers and now Bitcoin miners?
Training related to wildland fire investigation - February '18 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast highlights new training related to wildland fire investigation featuring an interview with Paul Way, and this year’s International Training Conference. We also have a pretty wild story before we wrap up. Birds starting fires?
Smart homes and digital data gathering issues - December '17 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this podcast, we discuss two topics on the technology and forensics cutting edge. Michael Custer of Kilgore Engineering, Inc. and retired Special Agent Tully Kessler share some knowledge and give us a taste of the classes that they will be presenting at ITC 2018.
Discussion with Writer Monica Hesse - September '17 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this podcast, you will hear some great news related to the IAAI and CFITrainer.Net and then we have an interview with Monica Hesse, the writer of a new book called "American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land."
Discussion with Criminalist- John DeHaan - June '17 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month on the CFITrainer.Net podcast, we talk to Criminalist, fire investigation expert and Author of "Kirk’s Fire Investigation", John DeHaan.
The Ghost Ship - May '17 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. For this podcast, we hear from a retired Captain of the Long Beach Fire Department, Pat Wills. Pat has been in the fire service for 37 years. He has been a leader and an investigator, now he is an educator speaking around the country about the importance of code enforcement.
Fast Podcast about ITC! - March '17 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we talk to David Bridges about what to expect at ITC and the training you won’t want to miss.
CFITrainer Podcast- A profile with an IAAI-CFI® - February '17 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. Join us this month for our podcast as we interview IAAI member and CFI, Jeff Spaulding from Middletown, Ohio. Jeff talks about his work in both the public and private sector and then he shares an interesting story about how a pacemaker is helping in an investigation.
Fire Investigation After the Flood Podcast - November '16 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we talk to Dan Hebert, an IAAI, CFI about "How Floods affect Fire Investigation."
September 2016 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - September '16 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we talk about the recent changes in the FAA's regulations for commercial and public sector use of UAS or "Drones".
August 2016 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - August '16 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we talk to Jessica Gotthold about the Seaside Heights fire in NJ from 2013
July 2016 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - July '16 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we talk to Fire Marshall, Ken Helms of the Enid, OK. Fire Department about his team winning the Fire Investigator of the Year award.
March 2016 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - March '16 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's fire investigation podcast from the IAAI's CFITrainer.Net focuses on the Youth Firesetting Information Repository and Evaluation System, which is called YFIRES for short.
February 2016 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - February '16 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's fire investigation podcast from the IAAI's CFITrainer.Net focuses on what you need to do to ensure the integrity of samples sent to the lab. A conversation with Laurel Mason of Analytical Forensic Associates.
September 2015 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - September '15 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. Our podcast related to the legalization of recreational marijuana and its effect on fire investigation was one of the most popular podcasts ever on CFITrainer.Net. This month’s podcast is a follow up with one of our listeners from California who is an investigator doing training on this very topic.
August 2015 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - August '15 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast is about NFIRS where we interview the Executive Director of The National Association of State Fire Marshals Fire Research and Education Foundation, Jim Narva.
July 2015 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - July '15 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. In this special edition of podcast we’re going to meet the newest IAAI Investigator of the Year, Andrea Buchanan.
May 2015 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - May '15 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's Arson Investigator podcast from IAAI & CFITrainer interviews Jason McPherson from MSD Engineering to talk about some of these new technology tools.
April 2015 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - April '15 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's Arson Investigator podcast from IAAI & CFITrainer interviews Dave Perry, a lawyer in Colorado discussing what fire chiefs, fire investigators, and the legal system are seeing in a state with legalized cannabis in regard to fire cause involving marijuana.
February 2015 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - Feb '15 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's Arson Investigator podcast from IAAI & CFITrainer interviews Mike Schlatman and Steve Carman who are both successful fire investigators and now business owners who have transitioned from the public to the private sector.
December 2014 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - December '14 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast interviews Steve Avato from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives explaining the process of elimination and how it is a critical part of the scientific method.
June 2014 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - June '14 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast interviews the 2014 Investigator of the Year.
April 2014 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - April '14 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast interviews with Don Robinson, Special Agent in Charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Currently stationed at the National Center for Explosives Training and Research, located at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
January 2014 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - January '14 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast takes a look inside the process of revising NFPA 921 and NFPA 1033.
October 2013 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - October '13 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast focuses on the fire research work of Underwriters’ Laboratories, better known as UL.
February 2013 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - February '13 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month we have an interview with George Codding who returned from a recent trip to Saipan and gives us a closer look at the international activities of the International Association of Arson Investigators
Mid Year 2012 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - Mid Year '12 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This podcast features a mid-year update on the IAAI’s new initiatives and ways for you to get more involved with the organization.
September 2012 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - September '12 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features an in-depth look at the recent live-burn fire experiments exercise conducted on Governor’s Island, New York by the New York City Fire Department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Underwriters Laboratory, and the Trust for Governor’s Island.
August 2012 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - August '12 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This is a special edition of the CFITrainer.Net podcast previewing the ITC 2013. There’s a new name for the Annual Training Conference from the IAAI now called the International Training conference.
April 2012 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - April '12 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features an interview with Chief Ernest Mitchell, Jr., the US Fire Administrator. Also we will discuss the upcoming ATC, Annual Training Conference, from the IAAI about to happen in Dover, Delaware.
March 2012 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - March '12 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features an interview with ATF Special Agent Billy Malagassi out of the Tulsa, OK Field Office about investigating fires in clandestine drug labs. We also report on NIST’s findings in the Charleston Sofa Super Store fire and IAAI’s Evidence Collection Practicum.
December 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - December '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features one of the presenters from this year’s IAAI ATC and see how a single photo broke the Provo Tabernacle fire case.
October 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - October '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features an interview with Deborah Nietch, the new Executive Director of IAAI.
July 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - July '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features an interview with Tom Fee discussing details of investigating wildland fires.
June 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - June '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month's podcast features a lot of exciting things that are happening at CFITrainer.Net
May 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - May '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month highlights the IAAI ATC in Las Vegas and the third installment in the "It Could Happen to You" series.
ATC 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - This podcast discusses the upcoming IAAI Annual Training Conference and National Arson Awareness Week.
April 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - April '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This podcast announces the release of the program, The First Responder’s Role in Fire Investigation, which teaches first responders how to make critical observations and take important scene preservation actions at a fire scene.
March 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - March '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features some of the instructors from the upcoming 2011 Annual Training Conference, to provide a preview of the courses they will be presenting.
February 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - February '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features an update on fire grants and an interview with Steve Austin
January 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - January '11 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features the release of the new edition of Fire Investigator: Principles and Practice to NFPA 921 and 1033, new flammability requirements from UL for pre-lit artificial Christmas trees and a growing fire problem in Dubai with factories turned into worker dormitories.
December 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - December '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast focuses on home candle fires, lightning punctures in gas piping, and respiratory diseases in the fire services.
November 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - November '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features research findings for structural stability in engineered lumber by UL, the ban on antifreeze in residential sprinkler systems, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s investigation of Jeep Grand Cherokee fuel tanks.
October 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - October '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features high-profile fire cases, why people leave stovetop cooking unattended and how new sensors under development may improve fire research.
September 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - September '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features how to use the ATF’s Bomb Arson Tracking System, IAAI Foundation grants, electrical fires and indoor marijuana cultivation.
August 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - August '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast focuses on social media as a fire investigation tool, a potential problem with modular home glued ceilings and research from Underwriters Laboratories on the effects of ventilation on structure fires.
July 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - July '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast is a roundtable on some of the latest research and technical activities that impact fire investigation, featuring Daniel Madrzykowski (moderator), Steven Kerber, and Dr. Fred Mowrer.
June 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - June '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast discusses career advancement, budget cuts and their impact on fire investigation, and the 2010-2016 ATF Strategic Plan.
ATC 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - Follow-up and Interviews from Orlando. Learn about the conference, hear what attendees had to say.
May 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - May '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. The second in our safety series called "It Could Happen To You." Our Long-Term Exposure roundtable is moderated by Robert Schaal.
April 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - April '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. The first of our two-part safety series called "It Could Happen To You." Our roundtable is moderated by Robert Schaal.
March 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - March '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features a conversation about legislative affairs affecting the fire service with Bill Webb, Executive Director of the Congressional Fire Services Research Institute.
February 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - February '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features our interview with a commercial kitchen’s fire expert about what you need to know when you work a commercial kitchen fire.
January 2010 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - January '10 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features a look at preliminary research on corrosion caused by Chinese drywall, a new database focused on fires in historic buildings, a warning on blown-in insulation, and the launch of the new firearson.com web site.
December 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - December '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features cooking fires, highlights of the International Code Council’s Annual Meeting on code requirements, including requiring residential sprinkler systems, and an easy way to keep up with recalls from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
November 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - November '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features chimney fires, including recent news on surgical flash fires, a proposed national arsonist registry, lightning research and an innovation in personal protective equipment.
October 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - October '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast is devoted to Fire Prevention Week.
September 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - September '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features the relationship between climate conditions and fire risk, new research on formulating fireproof walls and the latest in IAAI news.
August 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - August '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month takes a look at the dangerous combination of summer heat and oily rags, the rise in vacant home fires, and preview research underway on Australia’s devastating "Black Saturday" brush fires.
July 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - July '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month features a look at outdoor grill fires, a fatal fire at a homeless camp in Southern NJ, new NIST research on human behavior during building fires, and IAAI news.
June 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - June '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features live reports from the 2009 IAAI Annual Training Conference held in May.
May 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - May '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This podcast is dedicated to National Arson Awareness Week.
April 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - April '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features the NFPA 921 chapter on marine fire investigations and the myth and reality of static electricity as a source of ignition.
March 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - March '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month focuses on the rise of the hybrid vehicle and what its unique engineering means for the investigation of vehicle fires, the rash of devastating arson fires in Coatesville, Pennsylvania from December 2008 to February 2009, and news from IAAI.
January 2009 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - January '09 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast focuses on the deepening financial crisis in the US and arson for profit fires, how going green may pose a fire hazard and see how rope lighting may be a source of ignition, and IAAI’s Expert Witness Courtroom Testimony course.
December 2008 CFITrainer.Net Podcast - December '08 IAAI & CFITrainer Fire Investigator Podcasts. This month’s podcast features Christmas tree fires, changes to critical fire investigation publications, the weak economy’s impact on home fires, wind’s effect on structure fires, and ATC 2009.