Fresno City College Fire Academy hosts inaugural CCAI Arson investigators academy
The training will help California's firefighters become arson investigators.
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A first-of-its-kind academy is taking place in Fresno to help firefighters from across the state become arson investigators.
Firefighters from across California are in Fresno learning what it takes to become a fire investigator.
"They put all this training that is required to become certified together so you wouldn't have to travel all over the state or potentially the nation to chase down one certification here or there. It's all offered here," says Shane Brown with Fresno Fire.
With fires on the rise, officials say the demand for fire investigators has jumped exponentially.
Fresno, for instance, has seen a staggering 1,800 fires since January 1st but operates with just a handful of investigators.
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This training could help the department be better equipped to accurately determine the cause of a fire in the future.
"Fresno is a fairly decent-sized fire department with 20 fire stations, we only have six fire investigators, and of those six, three of them are on duty during the week, and we only have one that's responding on a 24-hour unit," said Brown.
The four-week academy covers everything from basic introduction to fire to how to fill out origin and cause reports.
The idea is to provide more experience and better prepare them for what they might find while on duty.
"The benefit can't be expressed enough. The individuals participating are going to go back to their agency and bring back invaluable training," says Brown.
