THE historian and archivist from Moreton’s Fire Service College has returned from a fact-finding trip to America.

Michael Kernan studied fire heritage while journeying across the USA on a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship.

He visited fire department museums, private collections and interested organisations on a trip that took in Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia, The US National Fire Academy, Maryland State Fire Museum, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma State University, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Preservation, restoration, display, storage, finance, documentation, collections policy, loans policy and opening hours were among subjects he studied.

Michael was appointed a charter member of the US National Fire Heritage Centre and has been invited to present a paper at the 2010 Annual Conference of the US Fire Museums Network, to be held at Maryland State Fire Museum.

He said the tour was phase two of his fellowship, phase one having been the planning, phase three set to be the writing up of his notes and phase four to be “cascading” the information to all fire collections in the United Kingdom via the Fire Heritage Network UK and in America via the US Fire Museums Network.

Michael said: “Coming home is not the end of my fellowship.

“I can foresee at least five years’ work ahead.”