The Brunswick News

For a time Tuesday afternoon, the Brunswick Fire Department's training tower on Fourth Street looked more like a scene from the Westminster Dog Show than a part of a fire station.

But these were hardly pampered show dogs.

The 20 arson investigation canines from around the Southeast are undergoing recertification training this week.

Most of the dogs, such as Bonnie, a 21/2-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever who lives with handler Ty Morman and works for the Georgia State Fire Marshal's Office, showed they could readily detect accelerants such as gasoline, kerosene and lighter fluid used to start fires.

Only seconds after Bonnie and Morman entered the area where evaluators had planted traces of gasoline, Bonnie was sitting near the suspicious spots to indicate her find to her handler.

"The dogs will stop and sit to alert the handler, then they will point the spot with their nose," said Ken Palmer of the Georgia State Fire Marshal's Office. "This tells us where to take samples to send into the lab. The lab, in turn, can determine if accelerants are present."

If accelerants are found, there is a good chance the fire was an arson.

The 20 arson investigation dogs being re-certified are part of a State Farm Insurance program that pays to train the animals and handlers in Maine for fire departments throughout the nation.

Since the program's inception in 1993, more than 200 dogs have been trained and placed in 39 states and three Canadian provinces. Five arson dogs are in Georgia, three of which travel the state with investigators from the State Fire Marshal's Office.

"In Georgia, our dogs respond to every fire where there is a fatality. In those circumstances, you want to make absolutely sure that arson is not the cause," Palmer said.

In Orlando, Fla., the addition of Maxine, a 41/2-year-old black Labrador retriever, to the fire department has greatly improved the effectiveness of investigations, said Lt. David Haley, an investigator in the department.

"My percentage, in terms of finding evidence in a carpet sample or other material, was about 60 percent, meaning that they came back from the lab as testing positive for accelerants about 60 percent of the time," said Haley.

"With her [Maxine], I'm about 99 percent successful. She's missed one time in four years. It's amazing."

While the dogs are more successful at finding accelerants, their basic working stance is the same as a human's.

"Years ago, when we did fire investigations, these guys would crawl around on their hands and knees and smell things," said Palmer.

"Now, we can bring the dogs in and they find this stuff almost immediately. It cuts down on the man hours we have to spend at fire scenes, ad it's more effective overall."