Hays County welcomes new Fire Marshal

Hays County has a new fire marshal. Steve Seddig has 28 years of service with the city of Wylie Fire Rescue where he served as a Fire Marshal, Division Chief and Texas Peace Officer. He is a certified Texas Master Fire Investigator and an International Association of Arson Investigators Certified Fire Investigator.

“When I started, I was a volunteer,” Seddig said. “I became interested in firefighting and went to the Fire Academy in ‘93. And after graduating [from] the Fire Academy, I had the opportunity to be a part-time firefighter in Wylie. I was fortunate enough to go full time in ‘96. … In ‘99 I went to the Police Academy and shifted to a fulltime 40-hour week [doing] code enforcement, fire investigation, for the city of Wylie and worked my way into the Fire Marshal position.”

Seddig is the president elect of the Collin County Fire & Arson Investigators Association. He was a key figure in bringing to Texas one of the two annual fire death investigation courses in the country that uses body donations.

“I started with the University of North Texas Forensic Anthropology Department up in Collin County where we created a course that basically was [meant] to train people how to collect skeletal remains,” Seddig said. “During that time, I was working with the Forensic Anthropology folks and learning how to collect skeletal remains, excavation and more in the archeology department of anthropology. I’ve always been interested in that. I’m going on 12 years, and we’ve been doing a class the last five years with Texas State University.”

Seddig is also a masters level student at the Texas State University Forensic Anthropology Department. He conducts research on donated bodies at the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility which provides insight into the ways that time, temperature, fire environment, body mass and decomposition contribute to burn patterns and skeletal destruction in structural and vehicle fires. He said the Hays County Fire Marshal position was a perfect fit, because he could continue his masters.

“The NIJ [National Institute of Justice] awarded a $1,087,000 grant over the next three years to the [TXST Forensic Anthropology] program … [in which] the end result will be a process, hopefully, to process skeletal remains.” According to the NIJ website, through this research project, protocols will be developed for anthropologists for the documentation and analysis of burned human bone.

As the Hays County Fire Marshal, Seddig says that he’s hoping to provide good service and help prepare for upcoming development and improvement in some of the processes. He said Wylie experienced a huge amount of growth in his time there, so he can apply his experience locally.

The Fire Marshal’s Office is responsible for the protection of life and property through code enforcement, plans review, fire inspections and fire cause determination.

Seddig officially began as the Hays County fire marshal on March 26.