Julia helps LA County firefighters sniff out arson
The Los Angeles County Fire Department has a new member on its arson-investigation team.
She’s furry with four paws and has an incredible nose.
Julia is a two-year-old golden retriever-Labrador retriever mix who travels to fires all over Los Angeles County with her handler, Capt. Casey Flanders, to try and determine whether an accelerant, such as kerosene or lighter fluid, helped start the blaze.
Since joining the team in May, Julia has helped at around a dozen fires.
L.A. County has had an arson dog before; Julia is the agency’s lone one now.
“We as humans can go in for a cause-of-origin investigation, but what the dog can do is narrow down a very specific point where there could have been accelerant used,” Flanders explained.
On Wednesday, Aug. 16, Flanders and Julia performed a demonstration for the Southern California News Group on the property that the El Monte fire station sits on that is also home to the arson-investigation team’s headquarters.
Picture a wagon wheel with a metal container on each spoke. Inside each container was a different burned substance, such as wood or metal. Inside one container was an accelerant — in this case, a chemical used for training that emulates the smell of most accelerants.
“Seek,” Flanders said.
Julia sniffed each metal container.
Eventually, she pointed her noise at the one with the accelerant and sat down next to it.
“Good girl,” said Flanders, handing her some kibble.
Julia only eats from the captain’s hands, even for full meals.
She was in a guide-dog program then went to State Farm, the insurance company, which had her trained before giving her to L.A. County. Since 1993, State Farm has matched trained dogs with arson investigators around the country.
The program mainly uses Labradors, or Lab mixes, because of their incredible noses and their strong hunting instinct, also called a “prey drive.”
Once a dog is paired with a partner, the two spend a month working together. Then the dog joins the household of the arson investigator.
There are 97 active arson dog teams in the United States that State Farm helped set up.
“They try to find a good match for the dog,” Flanders said. “They had pre-selected us based on what I told them in interviews. All of the dogs are good-looking, with good personalities, but not all dogs are created equal.”
You won’t find Julia at just any fire scene.
There are two kinds of calls the arson team generally responds to: Where firefighters are not sure if arson ignited the blaze; and when arson is indeed suspected.
“We do two passes at a house — for the first pass, she leads me and I follow her,” Flanders said. “After we’ve hit every pertinent part of the house, we bring her back to the front door and then I lead her through every little corner.”
When Julia signals that she’s found accelerant, the suspected substance is gathered into a container and sent off to a Sheriff’s Department crime lab.
“There’s only so much we can do, and what the dog does is just one piece,” Flanders said.
Flanders enjoys helping exonerate people who are innocent.
And …
“When we do get a good case and the evidence needed to put someone away, it’s rewarding to know that that person is off the streets,” Flanders said. “All big fires start small.”