On Thursday, Feb. 16 a fire ripped through Bogey Hills Country Club, resulting in one of the largest fire losses our District has seen. At nearly 40,000 square feet or almost an acre of space reduced to rubble, investigating the burned building to learn the cause of the fire is a massive undertaking.
The night of the fire, while responders began extinguishing the fire, CCFR’s team of investigators began talking to witnesses and assessing the scene to determine the cause. Once the emergency response was complete, they began the process of preserving the scene, evaluating the situation, and collecting and documenting evidence.
The leadership of CCFR quickly realized that their team of investigators would need assistance to handle the large fire scene. At this point, investigators from the Missouri Division of Fire Safety and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were called in to help.
The Missouri Division of Fire Safety and the National Response Team (NRT) of the ATF both offer trained investigators to assist fire districts in large-scale scenarios such as the Bogey Hills Country Club fire. They also provide access to state of the art investigation resources and technology that the District does not have.
“Ultimately, our goal is to learn the cause of the fire so we can learn from this loss to the community,” explains CCFR Assistant Chief Steve Brown. “By using the resources of the state and national experts we have a better chance of learning the why behind this fire.”
The State of Missouri’s Division of Fire Safety Fire investigators, are Missouri POST licensed law enforcement officers and are on call and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These investigators have thousands of hours of training not only in fire and explosion investigation techniques but also in crime scene investigation, evidence collection, interviewing, fraud investigation and other aspects of criminal investigation.
The NRT teams from the ATF are each composed of veteran special agents who have extensive post blast and fire origin and cause expertise; forensic chemists; explosives enforcement officers; fire protection engineers; accelerant detection canines and electrical engineers. The teams work alongside state and local officers in reconstructing the scene, identifying the seat of the blast or origin of the fire, conducting interviews, and sifting through debris to obtain evidence related to the bombing/arson. Further complementing the teams’ efforts are a fleet of fully equipped response vehicles strategically located throughout the United States to provide logistical support.
To learn more about the Bogey Hills Country Club fire visit the District’s Facebook page here.