Jim:

I recently addressed this issue in my monthly newsletter. The article is reprinted here: (For better blocking and fonts, you can find the original at www.firescientist.com)

Accreditation is on the Horizon

The quality assurance paradigm in forensic science (which includes fire investigation) is defined by the forensic science quality triangle, shown in Figure 1.

Fire investigators have long had the benefit of two legs of the quality triangle, certification and standardization. Certification has been available from the International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI) since the mid 1980s and The National Association of Fire Investigators (NAFI) since the early 1980s. Investigators are currently held to a standard for certification, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1033, Standard For Professional Qualifications For Fire Investigator.

Standard methodology can be found in NFPA 921, Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations, which has been available since 1992. The third leg of the triangle, accreditation has, until recently, been the weak link in fire investigation quality assurance. That is about to change.

To my knowledge, there are only three fire investigation organizations currently accredited, and until accreditation becomes more commonplace, it will not be considered meaningful whether a fire investigation unit is accredited or not. The accreditation provided comes from the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation, known as A2LA. This organization has so far accredited the Forensic Investigations Group of Covington, LA (www.forensicinvestigationsgroup.com), Iris Investigations of Englewood CO (www.irisfire.com), and the Abu Dhabi Police Forensic Evidence Department in the United Arab Emirates.

These fire investigation units are accredited in accordance with the recognized international standard ISO/IEC 17020:2012 Conformity Assessment-Requirements for the Operation of Various Types of Bodies Performing Inspection. These organizations also meet the requirements of A2LA R318-Specific Requirements: Forensic Examination Accreditation Program-Inspection.[portal.a2la.org]


ISO/IEC 17020 is a very general document, and in order to achieve accreditation, the organizations were required to essentially write their own standards in the form of a quality assurance manual.

Recognizing this deficiency in the availability of standards, the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) Subcommittee on Fire and Explosion Investigations proposed to the NFPA that they develop a standard for the operation of fire investigation units. At its December 2018 meeting, the standards council of NFPA voted to approve the proposed scope of the technical committee on fire investigation units as follows copy from the NFPA website.
The Council voted to approve the proposed scope of the Technical Committee on Fire Investigation Units as follows:

APPROVED SCOPE: This Committee shall have primary responsibility for standards relating to the development and composition of Fire Investigation Units (FIU). This committee does not have responsibility for the development of standards relating to fire investigation techniques, methodologies, or fire investigator professional qualifications.
The Council voted to approve the roster of the Technical Committee for Fire Investigation Units. The Council also voted to approve interest classification clarifications for the Technical Committee on Fire Investigation Units with an editorial correction to Consumer additional clarification as follows:
Additional Clarification: Any entity engaged in the practice of reviewing FIUs against the standard (both public and private).

There already exists a very general NFPA standard, 1730, Standard on Organization and Deployment of Fire Prevention Inspection and Code Enforcement, Plan Review, Investigation, and Public Education Operations but the guidance on the operation of an FIU is minimal.

The OSAC subcommittee prepared a rough draft of a new standard for fire investigation units, which it then passed on to NFPA, which can use it as a basis for the new NFPA standard if it so chooses.

One thing the new standard will not do is require that fire investigation units become accredited, but the standard will provide a basis to support accreditation, just as NFPA 1033 provides a basis to support certification.

The most difficult part of becoming accredited is writing the quality assurance (QA) manual that describes how the unit operates. An accrediting body then audits the unit to make sure that they say what they do in the QA manual and that they do what they say. In order to facilitate the writing of a QA manual, the OSAC Subcommittee has begun drafting a QA manual for a generic fire investigation unit, which can then be adapted by each unit. This generic QA manual should be available from OSAC by the end of the summer.

Although the scope of the new NFPA Technical Committee on Fire Investigation Units specifically excludes writing qualifications criteria, there is nevertheless some overlap between accreditation and certification.

Under “Resources,” ISO/IEC 17020: 2102 has requirements for personnel as follows:
6.1 Personnel
6.1.1 The inspection body shall define and document the competence requirements for all personnel involved in inspection activities, including requirements for education, training, technical knowledge, skills and experience.

NOTE The competence requirements can be part of the job description or other documentation mentioned in 5.2.7. (5.2.7 reads, “The inspection body shall have a job description or other documentation for each position category within its organization involved in inspection activities.”)

6.1.2 The inspection body shall employ, or have contracts with, a sufficient number of persons with the required competencies, including, where needed, the ability to make professional judgments, to perform the type, range and volume of its inspection activities.

6.1.3 The personnel responsible for inspection shall have appropriate qualifications, training, experience and a satisfactory knowledge of the requirements of the inspections to be carried out.

The Texas Commission on Fire Protection (TCFP) has produced a rigorous 128-pageCertification Curriculum Manual for Fire Investigators that meets the above ISO requirements. The TX CFP curriculum is directly tied to NFPA 1033 and NFPA 921. Investigators would be well advised to visit the site and read this manual, because this is what is going to be expected of us in the future.
(www.tcfp.texas.gov/manuals/curriculum_manual/chapter_5.pdf)

John J. Lentini, CFI
Scientific Fire Analysis
Islamorada, FL
www.firescientist.com
scientific.fire@yahoo.com