William Ray 'Casey' Jones

Ex-state fire chief oversaw office's rise

Armed with little more than a pair of firefighters' boots and gloves, a shovel and some cans to collect evidence, William Ray "Casey" Jones developed a national reputation for investigating fires.

Jones served for a quarter of a century as the state fire marshal in Arkansas under five governors.

"That was Casey's calling, his love, his dedication," said Jerry Reinold, a retired state police sergeant whose assignments included working under Jones.

Jones died Wednesday. He was 83.

Jones was preceded in death by, among others, his wife, Frankie, and a son, Rodney.

He was born in Van Buren, and his family later moved to Little Rock, where he graduated from Little Rock High School in 1950. He served in the U.S. Navy and was a veteran of the Korean War. He worked several years for Western Electric before joining the state police.

As a sergeant and then a lieutenant, he took over the state fire marshal's office, which under Arkansas law is responsible for fire prevention; regulation of the storage, sale and use of combustibles and explosives; licensing fire alarm and sprinkler system installers; and the investigation of the causes, origins and circumstances of suspicious fires.

Jones served during a time when fire investigation was more rudimentary than it is today, and little in the way of formal training was required at the time of volunteer firefighters, Reinold said.

"All he issued to us was a pair of fireman's boots and gloves, a shovel and some cans," he recalled Friday. "That's all the state police could afford."

By the time Reinold began working for him, Jones was supervising four investigators who worked all over the state, and his reputation among volunteer fire departments was growing.

"They all knew Casey," Reinold said. "If you said you worked for Casey, they knew you were qualified for the job."

Jones taught the troopers under him about fire investigation, but he also taught basic fire investigation to members of the state police's criminal investigation division as well as troopers assigned to the agency's patrol division.

As a result, "everybody had basic knowledge of fire scene investigations," Reinold said.

That training helped during the initial phases of the investigation before Jones or his investigators could arrive, Reinold said.

Jones also taught courses at the Arkansas Fire Academy and delivered lectures on fire-scene investigations.

As state fire marshal, Jones worked few cases himself and instead reviewed the work of the investigators under him before their files were cleared or forwarded to prosecuting attorneys if criminal charges were warranted.

Working a fire was like working a puzzle, Reinold said. Jones often could lead an investigator to the missing pieces, calmly asking questions or making suggestions that exposed shortcomings in the investigation.

"He was extremely respectful and nice," he said. "I never saw him angry."

After Jones retired from the state police as a captain in the 1990s, he applied his knowledge of fire investigations as a private investigator working for insurance companies. He was qualified as an expert witness in court cases involving fire in Arkansas and other states, still doing what he loved to do, Reinold said.

"He was one of the most respected and respectful people I've ever worked for in my life," he said.

Metro on 09/13/2014

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