EFFINGHAM — The Effingham Fire Department welcomed two special visitors Friday — Special Agent Kyle Rentfrow of the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal and his new partner, K-9 Rowan, a 2-year-old male Goldador.
Rowan wowed spectators at the Effingham Central Fire Station as he efficiently worked his way through a number of exercises in which he displayed his keen ability to locate accelerants at fire scenes.
“Rowan is a young, very ambitious, enthusiastic Goldador,” Heather Paul, coordinator of the State Farm Arson Dog Program, said Friday.
The Office of the Illinois State Marshal received Rowan through the State Farm Arson Dog Program, which covers the cost of training dogs to detect accelerants at fire scenes when arson is suspected or needs to be ruled out. Rowan will be used to help investigate fires in Effingham and throughout the southern Illinois region.
According to Paul, State Farm has had the program for decades and covers the cost of training for dogs and handlers throughout the country, even in Canada.
“Interestingly enough, the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office has been in this program since 1993, so for the entire 30 years, they’ve been a part of our arson dogs program for State Farm,” Paul said.
Rentfrow and Rowan recently graduated from a four-week training school in New Hampshire with a class of 14 other handlers. Rentfrow has been with the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal since July 2019.
Although they’ve only been with each other for a few months, Rentfrow and Rowan already seem to have a close bond.
“He’s with me 24/7, so if I leave the house to go anywhere, he’s with me,” Rentfrow said.
Rentfrow said when Rowan isn’t training or working “he’s your typical dog” and enjoys playing with his ball and taking the occasional nap.
However, when it’s time to train or go to a scene, Rowan is always at the ready, Rentfrow said.
“When he sees me with that food pouch on, he’s all business,” he said. “He’s ready to go right now.”
Rowan has made Rentfrow more excited to go to work every day.
“It’s made me enjoy it even more because I’ve got a partner with me,” Rentfrow said. “I love every minute of it.”
As Rentfrow and Rowan performed several demonstrations at the fire station Friday, Jeff Pride of the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal explained each exercise to observers.
Pride said when handlers train their dogs, they only use one accelerant, which is 50% evaporated gasoline and smells similar to a wide range of accelerants used at crime scenes.
“It works for everything,” Pride said.
Only a couple of drops of the accelerant are used during training to ensure the dog can detect even the slightest hint of accelerant at a fire scene or on a suspect.
“The odor is much more overwhelming in a real scenario than this, but this is just a way for the dog to stay acclimated with the odor and get their daily food intake,” Pride said.
“Most arsonists are not gonna just put down a drop of gasoline to start a fire,” Paul said. “They’re gonna dump it.”
For the first test demonstrated Friday, Rentfrow walked Rowan to a wheel-shaped object with several containers attached to it, each containing materials that are commonly found at fire scenes, but only one with an accelerant in it. The wheel is called a “daisy wheel.”
Within seconds, Rowan identified the daisy wheel container holding the accelerant.
For the next demonstration, several identical looking white towels were placed in a line on the fire station floor.
Similar to the previous test, accelerant was placed on just one of the towels and was almost immediately identified by Rowan, who lay down on the correct towel.
In another demonstration, Pride placed the training accelerant throughout the station to simulate a fire scene with multiple locations where accelerants were used while Rentfrow and Rowan waited outside.
“This is kind of a drill to simulate if we would be working in an investigation and we have several items of evidence,” Pride said.
Once again, Rowan quickly found each location where accelerant was used.
For the final demonstration, five Effingham firefighters lined up with only one of them having a drop of accelerant on them.
The exercise is designed to teach Rowan to better identify arson suspects who still have accelerant on their clothing.
“If somebody comes in with a gallon of gas and is pouring it, you can probably rest assured that they’re gonna have it on them,” Pride said.
The eager Rowan quickly found the culprit and identified them for Rentfrow.
Paul, who was at the demonstrations Friday, said before training could begin, handlers like Rentfrow are paired with dogs that best fit their personality type.
“They sat down, they asked him some questions about his work life, home life, and then they paired him up based on personality with his dog,” Paul said.
The incredible ability to smell things no human could and the desire to track those smells are clear strengths for arson dogs like Rowan, but Paul explained while some of the qualities make a great arson dog, it doesn’t mean that same dog would work well as a guide dog or support animal.
“All of our dogs come from guide dog programs or disability programs, so they’re dogs that literally flunked out of their training programs,” she said.
Unlike most dogs, Rowan and other arson dogs only eat food given to them by their handler, which is stored in a pouch the handler wears around their waste whenever they’re training their dog or working with their dog at the scene of a fire.
“They never eat out of a dog food bowl their entire life,” Paul said.
When these dogs indicate the correct location of an accelerant during training, they are given these treats as well as praise from their handler.
The program sends arson dogs to communities where acts of arson are the most common.
“We place the teams based off of need, not based off of where we write business,” Paul said.
To qualify for the arson dog program, an area must experience a minimum of 50 structure fires a year.
“They don’t have to be incendiary or suspicious fires,” Paul said.
Although State Farm covers the cost of training the dogs, it doesn’t actually own any of them.
“It’s purely a donation,” Paul said.
Although training dogs like Rowan isn’t cheap, costing anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000, Paul notes the program is well worth the cost because it helps departments find evidence that enables them to detect arson and arrest suspects before they set fire to anymore structures.
Additionally, Paul said the national average for the cost of a residential home fire is $47,000.
“They may investigate on average 90 to almost 200 fires a year, and if even just one of those comes back as arson that is prosecuted, this pays for itself,” she said.
Testing different materials for accelerants during an arson investigation can be quite expensive, but arson dogs are able to reduce the amount of benign items sent to labs for testing.
“Often times the dog’s there to rule it out,” Paul said.
Furthermore, Paul said arson dogs are able to detect evidence at arson scenes even a day or two after the initial fire.
“The dog’s able to identify and locate where there may be an accelerant, even buried under debris, under water,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Arson dogs often find overlooked evidence that is crucial to investigations, which is one of the most valuable aspects of the arson dog program.
“What it really does is it’s able to help the investigators locate potential evidence that we would never have been able to find,” Paul said. “And in essence, it saves taxpayer dollars because the dog can reduce the number of samples that may be taken.”
“This really is a tool that levels the playing field between the good guys and the bad guys.”