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NYS Department of State Kids' Room
Arson Dogs
The State's Fire Investigators
Mica, Buddy, and I are arson dogs.

I'll bet you have been wondering how long Buddy, Mica, and I have been working as arson investigators. Well, the Office of Fire Prevention and Control has been investigating fires with our special kind of help for nearly 10 years. With our partners and handlers, we investigate questionable fires across the state.		 Handlers with their dogs
Left to right: Me with my handler, Rogo; Mica with her handler, Randi Shadic ; and Buddy with his handler, Mike Knowlton

We had to go to school too.

We have received special training for this important job. We have a tool that is very sensitive and very helpful in this type of work. Can you guess what it is? You're right. It's our nose. We have been trained to sniff out certain materials that cause fires. Our school training takes eight weeks. Our big test at the end of school is to find samples of the materials that can start fires. We are so well trained that we can sniff out even the smallest amount of material that caused a fire. We may have to look in a snow-covered field, a car, or a burned-out room as part of our test. The materials we are sniffing for are called accelerants, and that means that they can make a flame or explode even when no one is there.

We work and we play.

Arson fires are illegal, and the people that start them have committed a crime. We help the firefighters and the police find out where the fire started and what material started the fire. Not all fires are arson fires. Too many fires are started because people are careless. But if there is any question about what caused a fire, we are called in to check it out just in case. Our detective work has helped to arrest many bad people who have started illegal fires.

We are on call 24 hours a day, and our work can bring us into burned-out buildings and homes at any time. Sometimes, depending on where the fire is, we may ride in boats or helicopters with our handlers just to get there. There are times when we ride the tower ladders many floors above the ground with our handlers so we can get to work.

We work very hard and we are dedicated to our jobs. We don't get paid any money for what we do, but we are rewarded with something even better: play. The toys have the smell of the materials that we have to look for in them. So even though we're having a good time, we're still in training.

We haven't replaced the "human" fire investigators yet, but with our help we're making it a lot easier and faster for them to do their work.

Go to the next page to learn about the history of Fire Prevention Week.

Hershey says, "An arson dog nose how to sniff out where a fire started."

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