Q&A
Sharing of investigation results with the public
1:04:48
·
89 sec
Chief Fire Marshal Flynn explains the process of sharing fire investigation results with the public and other interested parties. He outlines the procedures for requesting and receiving information.
- Investigation results are kept in the BFI database
- The department receives thousands of FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests annually
- Requests are fulfilled but may be redacted to protect sensitive information
- The department does not proactively reach out to share results
- Insurance companies and other interested parties must make formal requests for information
Joann Ariola
1:04:48
Okay.
1:04:48
And following all the investigations, and now you have all the information back, do you share those results with fire victims or impacted civilians, or does it remain internally with the courts?
1:05:01
How does that disseminate out?
Daniel Flynn
1:05:02
Well, we we keep it in our database, the BFI database, and we receive thousands of foil requests a year, thousands, and we we fulfill those when possible.
1:05:14
Always but redact them to the point that we need to to satisfy those requests.
1:05:20
But we do receive many, many requests, fire report requests, BFR requests, and we fulfill them as they come in.
1:05:28
But we do not proactively reach out to to people to report out on the the causes.
1:05:34
No.
Joann Ariola
1:05:35
So if my house burned down and it was suspicious, I guess, I would find out if through my insurance company
Daniel Flynn
1:05:43
that part possibly, but we we again, we don't directly notify the insurance company about that maybe either.
1:05:48
They would have to request that from us, make a written request through foil because it has to go through the redaction process.
1:05:56
We don't wanna share sensitive materials, HIPAA related issues or anything that would be precluded by law.
1:06:02
So we when the marshal completes his investigation, we forward that investigation that has been foiled to our legal department, and the legal legal department conducts those reviews to decide what needs to be redacted and what can be shared and what cannot be shared.
Joann Ariola
1:06:17
Okay.
