Meet Colorado’s hardest-working investigator trained to sniff out suspicious fires

By using her powerful nose, 16-month-old Ash gives fire investigators another way to find what sparked a fire.

(Photo provided by the Division of Fire Prevention and Control)

Ash, the 16-month Labrador retriever, is trained with 50% evaporated gasoline, to help firefighters pinpoint the cause of fires around the state. In her first 11 days on the job, Ash was called to investigate seven fires across Colorado.

The 16-month-old Labrador retriever is the state’s newest — and cutest — tool to sniff out accelerants, like gasoline, diesel or lighter fluid, to help investigators pinpoint the cause of suspicious fires.

“Labs in particular are great for this line of work because they have a very sophisticated nose,” said Matt Morgan, a fire investigator with the Division of Fire Prevention and Control and Ash’s handler.  “So if you and I made a pizza and baked it in the oven, you and I would smell just a pizza being baked. She can smell the oregano, the garlic, the flour that’s used in the dough, all the different ingredients she can detect or sift out.”

Though not as appealing as a pizza pie, Ash was trained to detect minute amounts of ignitable liquids, allowing her to catch a whiff of gasoline after firefighters have used firefighting foam to extinguish the flames.

When training, Morgan said he uses 50% evaporated gasoline.  Each assignment starts with a safety check to make sure no part of the site is still hot, Morgan said. Then he tells Ash it’s time to go to work. Her nose hits the ground and when she picks up a scent she starts to salivate. Once she finds the exact spot where the odor is coming from, she will sit down and look at Morgan.  “And then when I say, ‘show me,’ she’ll point with her nose exactly where she’s picking up the strongest scent,” Morgan said.

Fun facts about Ash

Born: March 3, 2023
Favorite toy: Stuffed alligator
Weight: 43 pounds (she was the
runt of her litter)

As one of three accelerant-detection dogs in Colorado, she has so far investigated fires around the state, including in Pueblo, Watkins, Brush, Conifer, Bennett and Aurora. At one site, she detected 11 spots where ignitable liquids could have been present, before Morgan collected evidence and sent it to a lab for testing.

By using her powerful nose, which is estimated to be at least 100,000 times more sensitive than a human nose, Ash gives investigators another way to find what sparked a fire. “She is another tool or another asset for us as investigators to find the answers,” Morgan said.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, municipal fire departments in the U.S. respond to an estimated annual average of 52,260 intentional fires each year. In those fires, an estimated 400 people are killed and 950 people are injured and about $815 million in direct property is reported.

Before July 2023, the state’s ability to track a fire’s origin and cause were very limited, with only one investigator, who was also the state fire division’s sole handler, dedicated to digging into what could have caused a fire, agency spokesperson Tracy LeClair said.

The passing of Senate Bill 13 last year allocated more money for fire investigations.

The state does not have data to show how many arson cases accelerant-detection dogs have helped solve, but it is now tracking that data as Ash helps solve future cases, LeClair said.  Ash is the state fire division’s third accelerant-detection dog, though the two others no longer work for the state. Peaches, another dog trained to sniff out accelerants in Colorado, works with her handler, Don Patterson at Denver Fire Department and Jojo, works with her handler Dawn Tollis, at Adams County Fire Rescue.

The cost of caring and feeding for a dog like Ash is a lot like the care of a household pet, but the real cost lies in her training. Morgan and Ash train every day, rain or shine. The state is spending between $10,000 to $15,000 on Ash’s training, LeClair said, adding that the state is working with  potential sponsors to cover the costs of Ash’s veterinary and dietary needs.

She attended rigorous training for 3½ weeks with Morgan at Jordan Detection K9 in Indiana. A typical career for dogs like Ash will span seven to 10 years, Morgan said.

She’s also trained as a therapy dog and those skills can be much needed at the site of a devastating fire. “If we go out to a bad scene where maybe somebody lost their home or perished in a fire, just her presence will bring that person’s emotions down and comfort them a little bit,” Morgan said. “And if they greet her, she sits and leans into that person, like, ‘Hey, I’m here for you.’”

She can be called to wildfires, though steep terrain and many more smells from nature can make detection more challenging for Ash. “When there’s a wildland fire, especially up in the mountains, where it’s a lot of woodlands, you’ve got a lot more danger of the trees falling or branches falling down, so it’s a little bit more complex,” Morgan said.

Though a certified good girl, Ash doesn’t get any treats. As a food reward dog, she must work for her food and any treat would deviate her from her work in detecting smells, Morgan said.

“If she doesn’t get a fire, then we just train twice a day,” Morgan said. “And the rest of the time, she’s just being a dog.

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Article by Olivia Prentzel/The Colorado Sun