‘The right training’: Winnipeg firefighters hone investigation skills to tackle arson

Local firefighters have their hands full tackling an uptick in arsons, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS) says, and they’re coming up with innovative ways to fight back.

Scott Wilkinson, deputy chief of fire rescue operations and training, told 680 CJOB that call volumes — in general — have risen ‘astronomically’ for firefighters.

“We’re seeing a lot of fires and for a lot of reasons,” he said. “A lot of them are outdoor fires, a lot of them are accidental fires. We’re also seeing a dramatic rise in incendiary or arson fires, especially within our vacant building areas. So it’s a major drain on our organization.

“But the root causes are really in the areas that we need a lot of community partnership on — they’re homelessness, they’re mental health or substance abuse. It’s wide reaching.

“We’ve had flashes of this. We had a major arson issue around 2000 and we had to make a real dedicated effort with collaborative work, with the investigations and the police service to try to tackle that at that time for a variety of reasons… and it’s now come back again.”

Wilkinson said one of the efforts to combat the problem has been to ramp up training at a customized facility on McPhillips Street that gives firefighters hands-on experience investigating the causes of suspicious blazes.

“We do have a lot of fires, unfortunately, in the city… and it’s a huge volume of work for our fire investigators. So it’s important for us to get the right level of certification and training.

“That used to be done through going all the way up to Brandon, to the Emergency Services College. But our fire investigations team and Chief (Jason) Fedoriw have designed and implemented a local setting that replicates the type of areas they go into, and they can replicate fires and fire patterns and do an amazing job of training our people to get out in the field.”

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Fedoriw told 680 CJOB that the process of investigating a fire is heavily science-based.

0:51 Brandon, Man. creates arson task force as number of suspicious fires rises

“We have to go and treat every investigation the same,” he said, “so it’s a full investigation using a scientific method from beginning to end on every investigation we do.

“We take a look, get a view of all possible ignition sources in the area… even if they don’t exist, we look for them. So we’re not only looking for what’s there, we’re looking for things that aren’t there, and that helps us develop hypotheses.”

Fedoriw said the training facility replicates the experience of going into a real house fire, down to minute details.

“We designed this to make it as real as it can be,” he said. “So what you’ll see is an actual living room, with the exact same materials that would be in a normal residential house — we have the same wall fixtures, drywall, couches, chairs, TVs and all sorts of trinkets and pictures hanging on the wall.

“We will develop the exact same pattern that would be found in a normal residential house fire… once we produce these patterns, we’ll bring our investigators in, and they will do a full investigation.

“They do the full scientific method, develop the hypotheses, and work their way through the investigation, and they’ll actually even collect evidence.”

Fedoriw said they’re able to customize the building to fit different scenarios, including a fire in a child’s bedroom, an office, and fires caused by different sources, like matches, electronics, or cigarettes.

1:38 Residents in Winnipeg’s William Whyte neighbourhood voice concerns over vacant home fires

United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg president Tom Bilous said the city needs more firefighters to be able to tackle the increase in fires without running the existing members ragged, but said even with increased staffing, some problems may not be solvable while so many vacant buildings remain in the city.

“I don’t know if we can totally stop arson from happening,” Bilous told Global Winnipeg.

“We have always advocated for removing buildings once they’ve been deemed irreparable, inhabitable. Our position is just flatten them. Don’t wait for somebody to to get in there and start a fire.

“And those (fires) aren’t always arsons. Those are those are sometimes people trying to keep warm,.. but that would remove some of the problem.

“The other part is staffing. You know, we need to increase our staffing ratio so we have more members to absorb the workload. We feel that it’s antiquated, outdated and far lower than it should be. And we’ve talked, of course, with Mayor Gillingham and council about that, and we’re hoping that they’re starting to have an appetite to address that issue now as it’s been long overdue.”

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