Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

ATF National Explosives Training Center’s First Class

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will conduct explosives training and hold a ceremony for the first graduating class at the National Center for Explosives Training and Research (NCETR) facility located at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. The intensive, one-week training course will be completed by 25 state and local law enforcement bomb technicians and investigators from sheriffs, police and fire departments in Alabama and Tennesse.

The graduates of this five-day, basic post-blast investigation course will learn a systematic method of investigating an explosion scene. The course provides instruction in explosives identification and applications, explosives effects, improvised explosives devices (IED) component recognition, and evidence collection. In addition to classroom participation, the students will view explosives demonstrations and actual investigation of a post-blast scene.

Activities will be held at the ATF NCETR facility on Redstone Road, Gate #3. On Thursday, April 30, 2009, a post-blast practical exercise will be held at 8:30 a.m., and the culmination will be a graduation ceremony Friday, May 1, 2009 at 1:00 p.m.

NCETR was established, in 2002 when Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, to train federal, state, local and international law enforcement personnel and to conduct cutting-edge explosives related research. The facility is scheduled to be completed by 2010 and will consist of three explosives ranges, eight classrooms, laboratories, a conference facility and office space for ATF personnel and its partners from the law enforcement and explosives communities.

More information on ATF and its programs and resources is at www.atf.gov.