LHS students get a close-up view of fire investigation
Published 9:15 am Saturday, March 15, 2025
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The future detectives at LaGrange High got a taste of real fire investigation thanks to the LaGrange Fire Department.
On Friday, LaGrange High’s Forensic Class took a field trip to the LaGrange Fire Department Training Facility on West Lukken Industrial Drive for a close-up look at fire investigations from the professionals.
LFD Lt. Lance Horne led Stacie Bulloch’s Forensic Class through an actual burned room used to teach and train firefighters.
The students were shown the steps fire investigators take to identify the cause of a fire and what is done when the fire is deemed to be incendiary, or intentionally set. Horne explained that LFD only determines the cause of the fire, not whether it was arson. The police department makes that determination, he said.
Arson fires are more likely than not to be incendiary fire, but not all incendiary fires are arson.
LFD often continues working with police after the fire is determined to be arson as LPD does not have an investigator who specializes in fire crimes, Horne said. Sometimes they have to call in the state fire marshal for bigger incidents, like the recent double murder arson.
When people commit bad crimes like murder, sometimes they’ll try to cover it up by burning the crime scene and evidence, Horne said.
“That’s usually a bad idea here in LaGrange because we have such fast response times,” Horne said.
Horne said the state fire marshal can be a helpful resource, as can insurance company investigators, noting they have a lot more money to spend on the investigation than the city.
“That’s a valuable resource that we have if something happens and I can’t prove it. I can get in touch with the insurance company and say, ‘Can you send me one of your private investigators?’” Horne said, saying they never want to pay any claims they don’t have to.
Horne said when fires occur during storms it can be difficult to determine the cause if it is electrical in nature. Most of the fire calls the city responds to are accidental though, like kitchen fires.
LHS Senior Brookelynn Barlow said she enjoys the class because she is interested in true crime.
”We’ve done fingerprinting. We’ve done research on how the history of forensics came to be,” Barlow said. “We’ve got a lot of projects. We’re doing a podcast, a true crime podcast, which is really cool because I love true crime. We pick a case and then we go over it. It’s really fun.”
For students at LaGrange High, the Forensics class gives them credit for their fourth science class or they can take it as an elective. LHS has offered the class for more than a decade but this is Bulloch’s first year teaching it.
