Was it an accident or arson? Maybe a murderer using fire to cover up his crime. The clock starts ticking with the first spark.

Every inch is evidence. Every charred piece of plastic and metal is another clue that, if missed, could mean a killer goes free.

It's not often you'll see the Town of Lisbon's firefighters deliberately torch a perfectly good house, unless there's a good reason.

"Any hands-on actually training that we can use our equipment and get in on a live fire training in a real live situation involving a structure like this is absolutely the best training that we can do," explained Town of Lisbon Fire Chief Doug Brahm

The practice they get makes them better and faster, and it makes the rest of us safer.

"It always reduces time and response," Brahm said.

The exercise is much more than just a dry run for the real thing. They're setting the stage for a unique group of students: aspiring and veteran fire investigators. Call it "arson school." 

Waukesha County Technical College is the first to offer the advanced hands-on training outside the National Fire Academy.

"It's very important to make sure that our first responders, in this case arson investigators, have the highest level of training possible," said Brian Dorow, associate dean for WCTC's criminal justice department. "That is our job."

The Lisbon firefighters actually set several different fires throughout the house. Each one recreates a scenario students may encounter on their job.

"We never want this to happen in any community, let alone for any family, but if it does happen, you certainly want the best trained arson investigators showing up at your scene to determine why it happened," Dorow said.

Their goal is to make these scenes as realistic as possible, including one room that recreated a homicide, where the suspect used fire to cover his tracks.

However, students like Milwaukee Fire Department Captain, Dan Berendt, don't know that when they show up.

"It's just like it would be at a regular scene," Berendt explained. "We responded, they gave us information, they had the fire department on the scene, they extinguished the fire, and then they found a victim on the bed."

Students have to sift through the debris piece by piece. It's a slow, painstaking process with a lot of lifting, sweeping, photographing, and sketching. At times, students literally sniff out clues to figure out what happened. 

Instructors make sure students play by the book, offering perspective, and the occasional nudge in the right direction.

Instructor Rod Pevytoe, an investigator with the Wisconsin State Fire Marshal says fire investigation is a very complex endeavor, so practical exercises like this one are crucial.

"We're trying to detect crimes that occur, reduce the crime incident rate, reduce the cost to the community and to the homeowners in the long run," said Pevytoe

The folks at WCTC say it took about a year to put their entire two-week training course together and are already working on round two.