The investigation of origin, cause and development of fires is a critical issue for the design and development of a safer built environment, in understanding how people behave when confronted with a fire and in being able to develop appropriate fire investigation skills which will provide a service to the criminal and civil courts. This programme aimed to develop a collective strategic approach to fire incident resolution across the stakeholder communities and to encourage the cross fertilisation of industrial and academic research facilitated by interaction and agreement of common goals.

The programme workshops aimed to cover the following aspects:

• Fire scene investigation and the development of a multidisciplinary approach.
• Critical issues in the investigation of fatal fires
• Building better investigative teams: training, knowledge transfer and assessment of competence in fire investigation