State-run fire lab loses national accreditation over questions about accuracy
Florida's only state-run lab that analyzes fire evidence has been stripped of its national accreditation after a review team doubted its work in more than a dozen cases.
The lab is run by Jeff Atwater, chief financial officer and state fire marshal. Fighting to restore the lab's credibility, Atwater has attacked the motives of the accrediting agency and will challenge the sanction at a hearing Wednesday.
State and local police and fire investigators rely on the Bureau of Forensic Fire and Explosives Analysis, which reviews up to 4,000 samples every year and is one of only three U.S. labs of its kind that analyzes fire residue for evidence of arson.
The lab was accredited in 2010 and again in 2015 by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. But in January, when its review team visited the lab in Havana, near Tallahassee, tests of 26 cases found 14 in which the lab erroneously found the presence of gasoline, the society said, indicating "concern regarding the competency of laboratory personnel."
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