René de Feijter

"Always keep asking questions"

From an early age, René de Feijter's interest in fire safety stemmed from the fact that he grew up in a firefighting family.

In 1989, he joined the voluntary fire service in Vlissingen and a few years later he went to work as a Prevention Officer and Fire Marshal at the Leidschendam Fire Service. In 1997, he switched to the Dordrecht Fire Service, where he was involved in fire safety in buildings, road tunnels and the tunnels of the Betuweroute and High Speed Line.

With all this experience, he moved to Efectis Nederland in 2007 to focus on fire research, with the aim of learning from it and improving the fire safety of buildings, among other things. René is involved in investigations for the Dutch Safety Board (OVV), is appointed by courts as an expert and advises the National Police on fire investigations.

In the laboratory of Efectis he regularly carries out reconstructions to explain the cause or course of a fire and performs second opinions on fire investigations by third parties for various parties.

Transferring knowledge is important to René and that is why he regularly supervises trainees, is a guest lecturer at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and the TU-Delft and gives lectures at (international) congresses.

By always continuing to ask questions, René has developed into an internationally recognised fire investigator (IAAI-CFI). He works on the basis of NFPA 921.

NFPA 921 is the guideline for science-based investigation and analysis of fire and explosion incidents. NFPA 921 is the primary guide for making accurate judgments about the origin, cause, responsibility, and prevention of an incident.

This guideline is intended for use by both public sector investigators responsible for fire investigations and private sector professionals conducting investigations for insurance companies, insureds or for litigation.

For René, justice is a major asset and therefore he is very valuable in our network.