Meet Colorado’s Newest Defense Against Suspicious Fires: Ash the Yellow Labrador

Everyone has their vice after a long day at work. For some, it’s an ice-cold Banquet and an episode of Wheel of Fortune. Others might sneak in a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Ash makes a beeline for the kiddie pool.

“That’s her thing,” says Colorado fire investigator Matthew Morgan. “She just has to go and jump in that thing every night.”

Considering the one-year-old English Labrador can’t have a cold one or a decadent dessert after a day of sniffing out ignitable liquids at fire scenes across the state, an evening dip only seems fair.

Ash is the newest addition to the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control (CDFPC), and she’s the only state-level ignitable liquids detection dog, a canine often used in arson investigations to sniff out accelerants like kerosene and gasoline. In short: She’s kind of a big deal.

The new recruit has only been on the job since July 1, but she’s already investigated eight fires with the help of her handler, Morgan. When they arrive on scene, Morgan walks Ash around the burn area, allowing her to sniff the property for ignitable liquids residue. If she picks up on something, Ash will sit and look up at Morgan. Then, when he says, “Show me,” she’ll point her nose to where she senses the odor.

“I’ll describe it this way: If you and I made a pizza together and baked it in the oven, we would smell pizza,” Morgan says. “The canine would smell the oregano, the garlic, the flour that the dough is made with. [Dogs] can decipher all the ingredients in their nose channels.”

And Labrador retrievers are known for having particularly strong sniffers; it’s why they’re often employed as search-and-rescue dogs for avalanche victims. But they also attend special training to give their gifted boopers a boost. Ash completed her coursework at Jordan Detection K9 in Indianapolis, Indiana, with Morgan.

To start, trainers isolate a flammable liquid like acetone or lighter fluid to get the dog acquainted with the scent they’re searching for. When the dog sits to indicate the odor is present, they’re rewarded with food and praise. The training gradually gets more difficult by adding more burn material and smaller amounts of ignitable liquids. By the end of her training, Ash could successfully identify 12 different types of flammable liquids.

Canines like Ash are often used to help investigate the origins of suspicious fires that could be arson. The National Fire Protection Association reports that municipal fire departments respond to roughly 52,260 intentionally set fires a year—but that number is likely even larger because arson can be difficult to prove. Dogs like Ash can save time and energy by quickly indicating the presence of ignitable liquids on the scene so fire investigators can collect a sample and test it to confirm. Then, it’s up to the humans to determine whether or not the liquids were used in a malicious manner.

Ash’s first day on the job was a trial by fire—literally. In the middle of an all-hands CDFPC meeting where the retriever was getting to know her new coworkers, the pleasantries were cut short when Ash and Morgan were summoned to a structure fire in eastern Colorado. Ash alerted on several items in the house that were subsequently sent to the lab; all tested positive for the presence of ignitable liquids.

But the Labrador’s day doesn’t end when she’s done sniffing the scene; Ash is also trained as a therapy dog, so she can provide emotional assistance to fire victims. It’s unusual for working dogs to hold two jobs, and in Ash’s field, her dual skillset is particularly helpful. “Being in the fire service around tragic scenes and a lot of emotions, it’s purposeful to have the therapy side of it,” Morgans says, “because she can go in there and calm everybody down that’s having one of the worst days of their life.”

Morgan witnessed the therapeutic power of his pup early on in her career. At one of the fires Morgan and Ash were working, two individuals got into a heated argument that crescendoed into a screaming match. Ash, Morgan describes, calmly walked between the yelling pair, putting distance between them and deescalating the situation. “I wish to God I could have recorded that because it was pretty awesome,” Morgan says.

When her shift is over, Ash rides home to Northglenn in an air-conditioned kennel in the back of Morgan’s truck. Before she runs inside to greet Morgan’s other pups—one Shiba Inu and two Lhasa apsos—Ash has one final task: a big ol’ belly flop into the kiddie pool.