HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. -- Norman Cetuk has quite possibly the coolest job in New Jersey.

He gets to light things on fire, shoot out windows with a pellet gun, and smash glass with a hammer. And if he ever wants to blow something up, he can probably get away with that, too, in the name of higher education.

The retired police officer and arson investigator is teaching courses at Centenary College that train students _ and law enforcement professionals _ how to become crime scene investigators.

Unlike the glitzy TV show, "CSI Miami," there's no David Caruso, no palm trees and turquoise surf, no bikini-clad babes and no drop-dead-gorgeous bodies that just dropped dead.

Instead, there's a non-descript classroom, a dented pickup truck that holds a vast array of things about to be set on fire, and no shortage of students willing to help torch them.

"I've only watched CSI one time, for 10 minutes, and I started talking to the TV," Cetuk said. "I saw my wife and son looking at me with this weird look on their faces, and I thought it might be better to turn off the show.

"It's Hollywood," he added. "These type of shows only highlight the glamorous aspects of the job. You don't see the everyday frustrations, limitations of working within a budget, time constraints, handling 30 to 50 cases a month, the human tragedy that as an officer or investigator you also have to deal with at a crime scene."

That's why Cetuk insists his classes be strictly hands-on. This particular day, he's teaching students how to investigate fires: How they started, where they began. Once those things are determined, the really hard work starts: Determining why a person set the fire, and even more difficult, proving it. Only 2 percent of all arsons in the United States result in convictions, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

Other courses cover things like processing crime scenes; examining dead bodies for signs of foul play (the trip to the morgue to watch autopsies is always popular); collecting evidence like tiny fibers, and using fingerprint and DNA evidence in investigations and prosecutions.

One gray day on a concrete slab near the campus's tennis courts, one student, for instance, is only too happy to oblige when Cetuk asks him to toss a lighted match into a plastic garbage can filled with newspaper. It's designed to show how an accidental fire, such as one started by a cigarette dropped into the trash, starts and burns.

Then, a second trash pail with gasoline-doused paper is set ablaze, and students can see, feel _ and smell _ how vastly different a fire is when powered by an accelerant.

Then Cetuk pours gasoline on a board, and lights it, so students can see how the fire follows the fuel trail, and leaves a distinct burn pattern. Significantly, once the fire burns itself out, very little of the wood is damaged, in much the same way that a floor set ablaze by an arsonist is blackened but not totally consumed. The board also reeks of gasoline.

Cetuk, who spent 13 years as a Bridgewater police officer, and another 16 as an investigator with the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, heading the arson investigation unit, can tell whether an arsonist was left-handed or right-handed by the burn marks left on a floor from the way flammable liquid was splashed about.

Then there are the neat fire tricks he lets his students in on. Say, for example, the owner of a business that just went up in flames claims all his company records were burned in the blaze.

Cetuk takes a 6-inch-tall stack of newspapers, douses it in gasoline, and lights it. Instantly, the pile erupts in a towering inferno. Nothing, it would appear, could have survived such flames. But after Dave Tynan, a Hackettstown firefighter taking the class, douses it with a fire extinguisher, Cetuk has a surprise.

He peels away the charred exterior and opens the middle of the pile to reveal a virtually untouched sports section detailing a New York Giants game. Only the outermost edge of the paper is singed.

"You have a guy saying `My records burned up," Cetuk said. "I say, `Didn't happen."'

In much the same way, an excuse from a property owner that he or she dropped a lit cigarette on the floor or in a pile of clothes usually won't fly, either. Cetuk drops a cigarette on a pile of clothing _ and nothing happens. Only 20 minutes later is there even a hint of smoke rising from it. A fire in a couch or bed can take four hours to really get going, he said.

"If someone says, "I dropped a cigarette on it, and it burst into flames,' Uh-uh," Cetuk said.

Then he takes a lit highway traffic flare, which burns at 1,800 degrees, and places it on a linoleum-covered board for 15 minutes. All the happens is a small scorch mark. A dropped cigarette, which is infinitely cooler, could not possibly ignite a floor, he said.

This is the kind of stuff Tynan, the Hackettstown firefighter, is eager to learn. He's one of several working professionals taking the class, hoping to advance their careers.

"A lot of times we see the fires without seeing how they're investigated," he said. "It broadens my horizons. This stuff really interests me."

Rashun Davidson, 24, of South Bound Brook, is one of Cetuk's star pupils. He hopes to become a police officer, and is a quick learn in class, often calling out correct answers before anyone else. He appears to appreciate the grunt work inherent in becoming a successful investigator, but his answer as to why he wants to make this his life's work was pure David Caruso.

"I want to see a criminal's face after I arrest him," he said.