How can firesetting behaviour be explored by creative processes?

Firehawks, a photography project about firesetting behaviours, was produced in collaboration with fire services and people with lived experience of firesetting behavior.

Join the event via zoom.

Panel members: Stephen King (photographer), Joanna Foster (fabtic), Helen Lloyd-Williams (Firesetting Intervention Scheme Manager, London Fire Brigade), Peter Fitzpatrick (Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service), Liz Wewiora (Open Eye Gallery’s Head of social practice).

The panelists will discuss how a creative project can explore and provide a greater understanding and perspective of firesetting behaviour, and what is possible when the art sector collaborates with a front line sector.

The Firehawks photographic series was presented at Open Eye Gallery 25 September – 16 November 2025. It did not seek to diagnose or define firesetting behaviour. Instead, it invited audiences to sit within the tension of fire – as both destruction, communication and renewal. It brought together voices from young people who have set fires, and those from fire and rescue services who work to understand, intervene, and care with courage, integrity, and compassion.

The images, the majority of which were made on location with Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service at their state-of-the-art Training and Development Academy, are a quiet archive of lived experience. Within them are the scorched traces of memory, fragments of speech, the smouldering residue of untold stories.

Stephen collaborated with Joanna Foster of fabtic, Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service, London Fire Brigade Firesetting Intervention Scheme, the Prevention Team and Arson Team of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, and adults with lived experience of setting fires as children.

We invite people working within the fire service and audiences interested in the project to join the panel discussion!

Learn more about the Firehawks project:

Firehawks at Open Eye Gallery

Firehawks short film

Stephen King is a UK social documentary and portrait photographer. His work includes both artistic projects and commercial commissions. This work often focus upon our relationships to physical and social space along with notions of ownership and belonging. Much of Stephen's work is collaborative and co-authored with the participants of his projects as well as with other artists, musicians, writers and academics. Stephen is Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader of B.A(hons) and M.A Photography at Wrexham University, Wales.

Joanna Foster is a criminologist who specialises in child firesetting behaviour. In addition to working directly with children and teenagers who set fires, her work includes training, consultancy and supervision services to front-line organisations who support children and families. Her published works include ‘Children and Teenagers who Set Fires: Why they do it and how to help’ (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020) and her research has explored practitioner decision-making when working with children who set fires.

Helen Lloyd-Williams has worked in the Youth Services for the London Fire Brigade (LFB) for over 20 years, including 10 years as the manager of the LFB Firesetting Intervention Scheme. The eight-strong specialist team delivers one-to one tailored intervention across all 33 London boroughs to children and young people up to the age of 18. The aim is to address misuse of fire: from fire play sparked by curiosity, to deliberate or impulsive firesetting triggered by mental health, family, social and behavioural issues through fire safety education.