Arson Squad

ARSON UNIT 

Detective Lt. Kevin Baranowski

                                                                                                                                     716-674-3154

Many times people will start fires to either cover up a crime or to try and recover insurance money on a piece of property.  After all major and any suspicious fires have been extinguished by the local fire departments, our Detective Bureau will work with investigators from the Erie County Sheriff's department in trying to ascertain the cause of the fire.

The investigators have been trained through the New York State Fire Academy at Montour Falls New York and receive continual updated training yearly to keep on the cutting edge of this problem.  Though most people do not think of the police in the time of a fire, these officers are there to try to identify the circumstances under which the fire started and help the victims recover their insurance claims or to determine a suspicious case where an arrest needs to be made.

Fire causes are determined to be in one of four categories:

1.) Incendiary - Fires that are intentionally and maliciously set

2.) Accidental - Fires caused by non-malicious electrical, mechanical, chemical, nuclear and/or careless means

3.) Undetermined - Fires that may have more than one possible ignition source and therefore cannot prove one definitive source of a single ignition point

4.) Natural - Fires ignited by acts of nature, such as lightning