By Jim Hannah
The Cincinnati Enquirer

An investigator from the Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire and Explosives' National Response Team leans on a metal roof section Tuesday as he examines the rubble of the Boone-Kenton Warehouse in Florence. (Patrick Reddy photo)

FLORENCE - They came from as far away as Seattle with bomb-sniffing dogs, forensic chemists, sketch artists and authorization to bring in cranes.

On Tuesday, a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives team of 20 began work at the site of a $1 million fire in Florence.

Invited by local authorities, this specialty team began shoring up the former tobacco warehouse so it can figure out if Saturday night's fire was arson or otherwise suspicious.

When it finishes its investigation, the ATF team will hand over a bound volume of the findings - a dream report for prosecutors if anything criminal is found.

"The goal is to piece together what happened," said Special Agent Pat Berarducci, an ATF spokesman. "Amidst the twisted metal and cinder-block walls ready to fall down are clues. Hopefully our agents will turn over the one piece of rubble that will tell the story. That's our whole goal."

The agents, working alongside Kentucky fire marshal officials and the Boone County Fire Investigation Team, started the day by recording the scene - a 125,000-square-foot building housing everything from Amish furniture to farm tractors. Photographers and sketch artists are part of the team.

Certified fire investigators, agents trained to find a source of the fire, will then "read" the scene, Berarducci said. The agents will direct cleanup crews to begin securing and removing the roof from the places they believe the fire likely started.

The weather will play an important factor in how long the group - one of four ATF National Response Teams - would be at the scene. The rule, Berarducci said, was not to leave until the bureau completed its report and presented it to local authorities.

Despite dropping temperatures, agents got a lot of work completed Tuesday. They brought in a crane early in the day and started lifting the collapsed metal roof.

"We don't speculate on the cause as we go along," Berarducci explained. "Once we are done and we have an opinion everyone can support, we will release our findings. We have to determine whether this was an act of God, an accident or intentional.''

ATF National Response Teams have investigated at least two other Kentucky blazes in the last 12 months, but this is the first time a team has visited Greater Cincinnati in at least seven years.

Many team members began receiving pages during the Super Bowl Sunday night alerting them they have been activated to respond to the Florence fire.

Though no one was killed and the investigation might prove it was accidental, the bureau takes the blaze seriously, Berarducci said.

"We are here to help these firefighters and police who risked their lives to battle this blaze," he said. "Something like this can completely wipe out a local department's budget. When we leave, hopefully we will leave a local department full of friends behind."

ATF fire investigations are completely federally funded.

Dennis Langford, who oversees the Kentucky fire marshal as executive director of the Office for Housing, Building and Construction, said the bureau has built goodwill in Kentucky by investigating several fires in the state in recent years.

"We welcome them in many cases because they bring federal dollars," said Langford. "We don't always have the money and equipment to investigate a large, complex fire."

Langford said the last fire the ATF investigated was a blaze at a western Kentucky funeral home that critically injured the owner and burned three bodies. The fire broke out on Dec. 13 in Hopkinsville. Fire officials said Tuesday that the blaze was still under investigation, but arson had been ruled out.

About a year ago, the bureau also responded to one of the worst workplace accidents the state had seen in three decades. An explosion at an auto-parts plant on Feb. 20 in Corbin killed seven, injured 38 and shut down a section of Interstate 75.

The blast, caused in part by a buildup of flammable dust near production lines, was so powerful that it lifted the roof of the sprawling factory.

"From my experience, they pick and choose what they want to come in on and look at," Langford said. "Sometimes our people will call them in if it has something to do with explosions. We think they came to Florence because of the large financial loss."

This is the 12th activation of a team this fiscal year and the 568th since its inception in 1978.

E-mail jhannah@enquirer.com