ATF National Response Team Activated to Salisbury, NC

Two Firefighters Killed While Suppressing Business Fire

SALISBURY, N.C., March 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) National Response Team, along with ATF
special agents from the Charlotte Field Division, have entered the
investigation of a large commercial fire that occurred Friday, March 7, 2008,
at 1910 S. Martin Luther King Avenue, in Salisbury, NC. The NRT responded at
the request of the Salisbury Fire and Police Departments.
Zebedee T. Graham, special agent in charge of the ATF Charlotte Field
Division, said that the business, Salisbury Millworks, was completely
destroyed and early estimates of damages are in excess of $2 million.
The NRT has brought definitive expertise and an array of state-of-the-art
equipment to the investigation of major fire and explosives incidents since
1978. Four regional components, organized geographically to cover the United
States, comprise the NRT. The team can respond within 24 hours to assist
state and local law enforcement or fire service personnel in onsite
investigations.
The responding NRT component normally has 18 members, including veteran
special agents who have post-blast and fire origin-and-cause expertise;
forensic chemists; explosives enforcement officers; fire protection engineers;
accelerant detection canines; explosives detection canines; and intelligence,
computer forensic and audit support. A fleet of fully equipped response
vehicles strategically located throughout the United States provides
logistical support. The responding NRT Team Supervisor is Supervisory Special
Agent Peter O'Connor, stationed in Louisville, Kentucky.
ATF's partnership with federal, state and local officers is vital to the
most effective processing efforts at an explosives or fire scene. The NRT
capitalizes on that by working alongside its partners in reconstructing the
scene, identifying the seat of the blast or the origin of the fire, conducting
interviews and sifting through debris to obtain evidence related to the
explosion or fire.
In addition to investigating hundreds of large fire and explosives scenes,
the NRT trucks were deployed for the 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon;
the Olympics and other major sporting events in the United States;
presidential inaugurations and the national political conventions; and major
international conferences.
This is the 3rd NRT activation in the Carolinas over the past year,
including activations in Spruce Pine, NC and Charleston, SC in 2007. The NRT
program began in 1978. Other agencies involved in the investigation are the
North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Salisbury Police and Fire
Departments and the Rowan County Sheriff's Department.
Contact: ATF PIO Earl Woodham
Cell: 704-591-5005
SOURCE Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

ATF PIO Earl Woodham, +1-704-591-5005