The International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI) is thrilled to announce that CFITrainer.Net now has more than 100,000 registered users. More than 18,000 CFITrainer.Net registered users identify as IAAI International or IAAI Chapter members. More than 2000 IAAI-CFIs are CFITrainer.Net registered members. Reaching 100,000 registered users is a tremendous achievement, and IAAI is very grateful for the many years of support from IAAI Members, the FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, and partners like ATF. We thought we would take the opportunity to share a little bit about the membership demographics with you as we celebrate this achievement.

CFITrainer.Net registered users come to the network for many reasons and with many objectives. Some are looking for a specific module to take. Others are fulfilling credential or certification requirements with a set of modules. Still, others dive deep into the training, taking dozens of modules. Some take the certificate test at the end of a module, and some choose to watch the module but not take the certificate test. Some don't take any modules at all; instead they are completing certificate-awarding tests for IAAI's in-person classes or taking the IAAI-FIT^® designation test. Overall, CFITrainer.Net has awarded more than 509,000 certificates of completion for modules. 1.75 million credit hours of tested training have been completed on CFITrainer.Net. An additional 223,000 credit hours were awarded for in-person IAAI classes whose testing was completed on CFITrainer.Net.


You may look at that 100,000 number and think that's not possible, how could there be 100,000 fire investigators? And you'd probably be right that there aren't that many, but that misunderstands the truth of who investigates fires. In the U.S., fires are investigated by a wider array of professionals than just those who carry the title of "fire investigator" and many other professionals have contact with fire cases in capacities other than investigating the fire. Fire officers have fire investigation responsibility, as do law enforcement officers, and fire marshals. Still, other professionals, like insurance adjusters, forensic chemists, and fire engineers have contact with fire cases and thus can benefit from the training on CFITrainer.Net. The professional designation identified by CFITrainer.Net registered users reflects this diversity. Only 32% report a professional designation of "Fire Department Investigator," "Independent Fire Investigator," or "Law Enforcement Fire Investigator." 42% list "Firefighter/Officer" as their professional designation. A further 6% list their designation as "Fire Marshal." These statistics show us that most CFITrainer.Net users don't consider themselves primarily fire investigators. Other members of the fire service and allied professionals are also coming to CFITrainer.Net for training in fire investigation skills. In fact, more than 1500 registered users identify as "Instructor," more than 3000 as "Engineer," another 3000+ as "Police Officer," and more than 1000 as "Insurance Adjuster." 10% of members identify as "Student."

CFITrainer.Net registered users hail from every state and territory in the U.S. The five states with the highest number of CFITrainer.Net users are California, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Illinois. 89% of CFITrainer.Net registered users are from the United States, but more than 165 countries and territories are represented. Many you would expect, such as Canada, the UK, and Australia. However, each of the following countries has hundreds of CFITrainer.Net registered users: Hong Kong, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. Countries as diverse as Kenya, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, St. Lucia, the Philippines, Ecuador, Nigeria, Malaysia, Liberia, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, and Colombia all have dozens of CFITrainer.Net registered users. Even tiny island nations like the Seychelles and Kiribati are represented, as are less well-known places like the Bailiwick of Jersey (a UK dependency near the coast of Normandy, France) and East Timor (an island north of Australia).

Moreover, in what we consider some of the best news, new CFITrainer.Net registrations continue to come in at record levels. January 2018 was 6th biggest month for new sign-ups in the entire 13-year history of CFITrainer.Net — more than 1000 new users joined that month. The network continues to thrive, new modules are on the way, and users continue to turn to CFITrainer.Net for credible, vetted training in fire investigation. We are very grateful for the trust that has been placed in us and work every day to continue to earn it.

All statistics in this article were current as of noon on the day it was written, Friday, February 2, 2018.