Fri Sep 03 2010
By Dave O’Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
Law enforcement investigators and professional firefighters know that arson is one of the most difficult crimes to prove in court.
Pooling available resources at a time when the state and local governments are cutting budgets, the Portage County Fire Chief’s Association has been actively seeking ways to encourage collaboration. A fire investigation team was one of those ways, local chiefs said.
“A lot of times, when a fire starts, it’s hard to tell how it started,” Aurora Fire Chief David Barnes said.
Most fires are ruled accidental, he said. The ones that are started intentionally require knowledgeable investigators and evidence that can stand up to scrutiny at trial.
The team, which has been active for about six months, has been called out to seven incidents. Those incidents resulted in one conviction for arson, Barnes said.
Team members come from a number of Portage County’s 21 full-time and volunteer departments. The Portage County Sheriff’s Office also has been sending a detective to the team’s meetings, Barnes said.
Ravenna Township Fire Chief Steve Bosso said two firefighters from his staff on the team.
“We don’t have that many arson fires out there, but it’s inevitable that you’re going to,” Bosso said.
State resources are also more scarce in Ohio’s hard economic times. The geographic areas of responsibility for the State Fire Marshal’s Office are getting larger due to budget cuts, Barnes said, so preliminary investigations by local authorities can be vital when state investigators show up at a fatal fire or one where there is a large amount of property loss.
The team is just one of the ways local fire departments are cooperating.
“We have a countywide fire prevention association that meets on a monthly basis, trying to standardize the ways we do inspections, handling issues related to that,” Brimfield Fire Chief Bob Keller said. Some of those meetings are held at the Brimfield fire station, he added.
The Brimfield department doesn’t have any members on the fire investigation team, but Keller said he hopes to have a staff member join in the near future.
Bosso and Barnes also pointed to the existence of countywide water rescue and hazmat teams as ways the county’s fire departments share resources. And there is room for the fire investigation team to grow, Barnes said.
“It’s still growing, still getting more organized, but so far, so good,” he said.
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