EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT)- Today is International Firefighters Day, a time set aside to honor the sacrifices firefighters make to keep us safe and thank them for their service. Today, we spoke with an Evansville fire investigator who spends her days in charred buildings.
Anytime there is a fire with property damage, you may see fire investigator Kim Garrett.
“It has interested me throughout my career,” she says.
Garrett has served with the Evansville Fire Department for 28 years, including 9 as a fire investigator. During that time, she has covered some strange fires, and some that changed Evansville’s landscape, like the fires at Bee Hive Mini Storage and the Diamond Avenue Flea Market in 2021, and last year’s Garvin Street warehouse fire.
“I was at all of those and those kind of stick around and almost haunt you for a while. Bigger ones like those usually have bigger agencies and corporations involved and they have the tendency to linger,” she says.
Garrett says finding the cause can be challenging, depending on the severity of the fire.
“It is almost like a puzzle or riddle. You have to take all of the pieces together and try to figure out how the fire started. There are times you can have three or four hypotheses and you just have to leave it as an undetermined fire sometimes,” she says.
When those cases come up, Garrett says she turns to fellow firefighters to brainstorm.
“There is a couple of them who are interested in fire investigation. We will bounce things off of each other,” she says.
Garrett says it helps if witnesses come forward. She says honesty can help them solve the case.
“It is your safety and our safety. We learn from every fire,” she says.
