The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has broken ground on a new national laboratory center in Beltsville, Md., outside Washington, D.C.

The lab will house the atf Fire Research Center, the first laboratory of its kind in the world. The center will be dedicated to supporting fire scene investigations and will house state-of-the-art equipment and technology.

The center will be a high-bay research facility capable of conducting a wide variety of potential fire re-enactments, ranging from a two-story townhouse to a toaster. This testing will not only be useful to learn how and why fires begin and spread, according to the atf, but also to better understand ignition scenarios and improve firefighting methods.

Work on the 35-acre facility is scheduled to be completed by September 2001.