You wouldn’t be the first person to look at an artichoke or pineapple and wonder who it was that said, “Let’s eat it.”
Similarly, one might guess that the first person who said, “Let’s use dogs to find out if a house fire was set on purpose,” was met with peals of laughter. They weren’t laughing after “Mattie,” did her thing.
Before we meet Mattie, the credit for even considering dogs for arson detection goes to the collaborative efforts of Robert Noll, then a dog handler with the New York Police Department Bomb Squad, and Joseph Toscano, an investigator for the New Haven, Connecticut District Attorney’s Office in the late 70s.
Their initial work started with training “Nellie,” a family pet, and in a feasibility study conducted by Noll and ATF forensic chemist Richard Stroebel in 1984, they demonstrated that dogs could locate accelerants with accuracy.
“Mattie,” a black Labrador Retriever, became the first official “arson dog.” She was trained by the Connecticut State Police in collaboration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 1986 to detect multiple ignitable liquids commonly used in arson. Mattie became the first laboratory-certified accelerant-detection canine in the United States. Her success at locating evidence lead to numerous arrests and convictions and marked the beginning of modern arson dog programs. “Specialists” like Mattie proved that the accuracy of trained arson dogs far surpassed other detection methods available at the time. It wasn’t just that arson dogs could detect accelerants at extremely low concentrations (often below the detection limits of laboratory equipment), but they could pinpoint the exact location of an accelerant quickly and accurately. In fact, data showed that samples identified by arson dogs resulted in positive lab tests for ignitable liquids over 90% of the time as compared to only about 30% for samples collected by investigators without arson dog.
On the heels of Mattie’s paws came “Sgt. Hulk,” a Massachusetts State Fire Marshal’s Office arson-trained Labrador Retriever. Hulk helped solve the 1990 Revere fire, a devastating 10-alarm blaze in Revere, Massachusetts attended by 17 fire departments from the Boston area. The worst fire that the Revere fire chief said was the worst he had seen in 35 years, the blaze destroyed five homes, damaged 12 others, and left 140 people homeless. Sgt. Hulk detected five spots in the ashes where accelerants had been used and this provided critical leads for investigators. Hulk’s work ultimately lead to the conviction of four men responsible for setting the fire.
Mattie and Sgt. Hulk were pioneers in the early use of arson dogs, but their use focused primarily on detecting accelerants at fire scenes to determine whether a fire was deliberately set. The idea of training dogs to track the person who set it required a different approach, and this wasn’t widely implemented until later.
Not until Blaze.
Blaze, a Bloodhound, was 6-months old when he was acquired to begin training to track down arsonists. Given the results he would produce, Blaze was a bargain for the $1,000 in donations to the Forestry Commission from the Tuscaloosa County Fire Protection Association, District Three Volunteer Fire Fighters’ Association, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and the Alabama Conservation Enforcement Officers’ Association. The remainder of the total $6,000 in donated funds took care of his training, food and veterinary care.
In 2011, Blaze was deployed to investigate a suspicious woods fire in Baldwin County, Alabama. Using his exceptional Bloodhound nose and training, Blaze picked up a human scent trail at the fire scene and followed it through a nearby subdivision, past several houses, and directly to the door of a suspect’s home. The suspect initially denied involvement, but witnesses later confirmed seeing him in the area where the fire had been set. The suspect, 46 year old Brian Keith Wilson, was ultimately convicted.
In 2012, Blaze had another pivotal role in an investigation involving Darren Mitchell Lavender. Lavender was charged with setting multiple fires as a diversion to evade game wardens, but after Blaze tracked Lavender’s scent from evidence found at the scene, it put him at the scene of the crime. Busted!
Is it an idea that has “caught fire.”
As of 2025, there are approximately 104 certified arson dogs in the United States and Canada actively working to investigate arson cases. This includes teams trained through programs like the State Farm Arson Dog Program and the ATF’s National Canine Division, the leading federal authority for explosives and accelerant detection canines for law and military. The State Farm program alone has trained over 435 arson dog teams since its inception in 1993.