In May of 2001 The Northern Virginia Joint Committee on Fire and Arson Investigation, a subcommittee of the Northern Virginia Fire Marshals, sponsored a combined NFPA 921 class and the National Association of Fire Investigator’s Certified Fire and Explosion Investigation certification testing. The Prince William County, Virginia Department of Fire and Rescue, located just south of Washington, DC, hosted the training, which included twenty-three area fire investigators and police. The training and testing took place at the department’s Public Safety Training Center outside Manassas, Virginia.

The training consisted of forty hours of classroom and practical based upon NFPA 921. The Prince William County Fire Marshal’s Office provided their own NAFI CFII’s Bill Niemann and Tim Hattwick to conduct the training, and supplied additional personnel to teach specific areas of expertise.

Among other agencies represented in the instructor line-up for the week were the Fairfax County Fire Marshal’s Office, the Virginia Division of Forensic Laboratories, as well as private engineering firms.

Students came from around the state and included both private and municipal investigators. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Federal fire service were also represented.

The main purpose of the course was to familiarize the students with NFPA 921 and to prepare them to take the NAFI CFEI test, which was proctored by instructors at the end of the course.

As anticipated, lively discussion concerning NFPA 921 took place throughout the class. Two principle topics of conversation were the Scientific Method and spoliation of evidence. For some students these were new concepts, and for others old misconceptions were laid to rest. While class content remained structured around NFPA 921, students participated in various case studies and also received the United States Department of Justice "Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings" training module.

All twenty-three students took the CFEI test at the end of the course, and we are pleased to report all students passed and attained their CFEI status.

This first course (to our knowledge, the first of it’s kind in the DC area) turned out to be so popular that, a second course was held in early September.

Between these two sessions NAFI membership in Virginia, and the number of CFEI’s has grown by over 50. This is an excellent step down the continuing road of professionalism for fire investigation in our area.

New CFEIs smile for the camera after their NFPA 921 class.