Virtual reality (VR) is proving to be a useful tool in investigating the cause of fires and how they spread.

Using a system developed by RiVR, experts can scan the scene of a fire to record the damage and recreate it in VR.

As well as establishing the facts around a fire, the VR experience can be used to help train firefighters and police on similar situations for the future.

Investigators can interact with the scene in the same way they would in real life, laying out markers and taking photos of specific areas.

Mike Ferguson, of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, told BBC Click: “You can replicate one-off events - so a one-off event, which could be a dangerous or hazardous environment, you can actually recreate as a one-off.

“And people would never, ever get the opportunity to rehearse that, but in VR, we can.”