Full Arson Dog Press Release - Web viewK9 Dodger is the Bureau’s lone explosives detection...

KEVIN O’CONNORFire Chief

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Battalion Chief Steve Martin orAugust 18, 2016 12:00 p.m. Rebecca Diehm (614)645-7859

Columbus Division of Fire Arson K9 Program Proudly Announces Newest Graduate, State of Ohio Fire Marshal K9 Dolan along with his partner Investigator Jeffery Heft.

[Columbus-OH] The State of Ohio Fire Marshal, Bureau of Fire & Explosion Investigation is getting a new officer who wags his tail while doing the serious work of crime detection.

Dolan, a lean two-year-old black lab adopted from Cincinnati Lab Rescue, has completed the Columbus Division of Fire eight-week course of accelerant detection along with his handler Jeffery Heft. Investigator Heft is a Madison-Jefferson firefighter who joined the State Fire Marshal as an investigator in 1992.

Dolan will be receiving his certificate of training on Friday August 19, 2016 at 10:00 a.m., at Mitchell J. Brown Fire Station #3 located at 222 Greenlawn Ave. The pair will test as a team to earn Ohio’s certification for accelerant detection K9 on Thursday, August 25, 2016, at the State Fire Academy in Reynoldsburg.

Representatives from Cincinnati Lab Rescue will be on hand to witness the ceremony and meet Heft.

K9 Dolan and Heft will be the Bureau’s third K9 arson team in the state, and the first to be stationed in the southern region. K9 Dodger is the Bureau’s lone explosives detection dog. A fifth K9 team will begin training at the Columbus Division of Fire this fall and join the Bureau’s southern region at the end of the year.

Heft is looking forward to working with K9 Dolan in the Southern District, which covers Vinton, Jackson and eastern Scioto Counties. The Bureau’s arson investigators can be requested throughout the state to assist with suspicious fires, and especially fires that result in a fatality or the scene of an explosion. The Bureau’s 22 investigators probed 1,131 suspicious fires in 2015, leading to 71 arrests and 24 convictions.

“When you’re an arson investigator, you rely on visual evidence. You’re looking for burn patterns and other visual clues,” said Heft, noting the human’s limitations. Heft has been an arson investigator for four years, and now a first time K9 handler with Dolan.

Administration Bureau | 3675 Parsons Avenue | Columbus OH 43207 | T (614) 645.6017 | F (614) 645.3040Emergency Services Bureau | 3639 Parsons Avenue | Columbus OH 43207 | T (614) 645.4128 | F (614) 645.4204Fire Prevention Bureau | 3639 Parsons Avenue | Columbus OH 43207 | T (614) 645.7641 | F (614) 645.4245Support Services Bureau | 3639 Parsons Avenue | Columbus OH 43207 | T (614) 645.6385 | F (614) 645.0110Training Bureau | 3639 Parsons Avenue | Columbus OH 43207 | T (614) 645.6360 | F (614) 645.3214

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“We walk through a scene first; to make sure it’s safe for a dog. But you have to be careful not to ‘clue’ the dog with what you have seen initially. You have to turn that off and let the dog work the scene on his own,” said Heft.

Arson dogs are trained over 8-10 weeks to detect nine different petroleum based odors frequently used in arson fires, including gasoline, diesel fuel, lamp oil, kerosene, lighter fluid, charcoal fluid, paint thinner, camping fuel and distillate based stain removers.

The dogs begin the “imprinting” process by repetition; with the trainer giving the “seek” command followed by offering the dog a whiff of a minute trace of gasoline (10 microliters, or about a quarter of a drop) which simulates the remaining residue after a hot structure fire. The K9 in training receives a lump of food as a reward each time he “sits” to indicate detection.

“The dog must learn to differentiate that smell from all the other petroleum based smell found at a fire scene, like burnt plastics or carpet padding,” said Dennis Hammond, a Columbus firefighter and arson K9 trainer who instructed Heft and his dog Dolan.

“On his first weekend, Dolan had 341 repetitions sniffing out a can of 50 percent evaporated gasoline,” said Hammond. The Columbus Division of Fire K9 program has trained the State Fire Marshal’s two current arson dogs, India and Connor, both of whom work the northern region of Ohio.

“Investigator Heft was already an experienced arson investigator; he’s well versed in evidence collection, so that made the training much easier,” said Hammond. The Columbus Division of Fire has trained 11 arson dogs since the K9 program started in 2005.

Dogs possess about 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to about 6 million in humans, making them ideal for evidence collection, according to Hammond, who seeks out high energy dogs who exhibit the confidence to work around large groups of people.

The K9 handler and dog work on handling skills and search patterns during the training period so the pair can work as a seamless team on a fire scene.

Accelerant detection dogs have become a vital tool in both uncovering, and just as importantly, ruling out arson as the origin of a fire, according to Columbus Division of Fire’s Captain Jeffery Martin, who heads the Division’s 17 person Fire Investigations Unit.


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“An arson dog is more likely to find the strongest, best concentrations of evidence of an accelerant, and he finds them quickly. That means we can send fewer samples, and those samples are more likely to be high quality evidence. That frees us up to concentrate on the most solvable crimes, which should lead to better conviction rates,” said Martin.

Martin says his investigators are seeing more cases of fires deliberately set to cover up evidence of more serious, violent crimes. Especially homicides, where assailants hope to destroy DNA or fingerprint evidence.

“We always bring in a dog if someone has died in a fire, even if we feel the fire was accidental,” said Martin, adding that it’s extremely important to all concerned to establish or rule out foul play when a life is lost as a result of fire.

Heft says that his new K9 partner Dolan will be plenty busy in the southern region of Ohio.

Hammond said Dolan proved to be an eager learner, and believes he and Heft will have no problems passing their final certification test on August 26.

“We basically put them through the same test, so we are confident that dog and handler are fully prepared to pass the state certification,” said Hammond.

Afterwards, K9 Dolan will go home with Heft, and travel with him to work each day. Heft, a self-described “dog guy”, already has two dogs at home, but feels Dolan will fit in nicely with his new family.

“Besides the fact he’ll never feed out of a bowl (K9’s are only fed by hand from their handlers), he’ll be treated just like family,” said Heft. “The only difference is he will get to leave for work with me every morning.”


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Full Arson Dog Press Release - Web viewK9 Dodger is the Bureau’s lone explosives detection...

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