Post by Aussienot on Sept 25, 2008 18:12:53 GMT -5
Arson. It’s one of the easiest crimes to commit and one of the hardest to solve. It’s the near perfect crime…one that consumes it’s own evidence. But things are hotting up for arsonists. Fire Investigation now has a secret weapon. It’s a smart new piece of bio-technology, called ‘ELLIE’.
She’s a 4 year old Golden Labrador and her super-sensitive nose is able to detect the use of accelerants in starting fires more accurately and more quickly than existing technologies. It has been shown that dogs have nose membranes 70 times more sensitive than humans and a much larger part of their brain is dedicated to scent detection. Her skills are being put to the test by scientists at the Forensics Dept of the University of Technology, Sydney, who have been surprised by their discoveries of the way in which dogs smell. They are attempting to validate Ellie’s accuracy and refine dog training strategies for fire scene investigation
Ellie is the only ‘Fire Dog’ in Australia at present, but she comes from an elite Australian Customs bred gene pool that has produced the best ‘sniffer dogs’ in the world. So it may not be long before a lot more ‘fire dogs’ are turning up at fire scenes, making life a lot more difficult for arsonists.
TRANSCRIPT
Narration: Arson. It’s one of the easiest crimes to commit, and one of the hardest to solve. It’s the near perfect crime; one that consumes it’s own evidence. But things are beginning to hot up for the arsonists…
Jonica Newby: Well I’m here at a house fire where the Fire Dept are running a major fire simulation. Now for the last 4 years they have been trialing a new detection device and they are pretty excited about it. It’s mobile. It’s reliable. And it’s proving far more sensitive than any of their existing technologies.
Narration: This smart new piece of bio-technology is known as Ellie. She’s Australia’s first and only fire ‘sniffer dog’. And her incredible sense of smell is about to be put to a critical test.
Val Ansett (Handler): Probably about half an hour to an hour after the fire has burnt and been extinguished then I’ll take Ellie in.
Narration: When a fire is extinguished, extreme heat followed by drenching water means few forensic clues are left behind. Finding the minute traces of petroleum residue that would point to arson is often extremely hard for investigators…Enter Ellie the ‘Fire Dog’.
Handler: That’ll do. Good girl…That’s the way….Find it…girl. Good girl….
Narration: Even for Ellie this room poses a complex challenge. In a world where even the carpet and furniture are made from petrochemicals, can she distinguish the one petrochemical that started the fire?
Handler: Ok here. Good girl.
Narration: It’s a difficult test, but Ellie soon finds the source.
Val Ansett: You can actually see down there that we’ve got a broken bottle with a wick in it. Ellie will go in here and within one minute she has pinpointed the exact spot to take a sample. Whereas in the past we were taking samples from four or five different points, having to analyse each one at quite a high cost… Whereas now he can look at one area, just concentrate on that area and if it fits with everything else that he believes started the fire then he can pretty well close the case right then.
Narration: Like any other new forensic tool, Ellie’s abilities are being subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation. The samples she identifies are taken back to the University of Technology, Sydney, for analysis. Forensic scientist Belinda Jones is in charge of the study.
Belinda Jones:.So after we have prepared the sample, this is the room we come into and this is the machine that will analyse and identify the components in petrol.
Narration: By correlating Ellie’s findings with the lab results Belinda has discovered that Ellie is far more accurate than their Gas Spectrometre. What’s more, because Ellie responds to a whole ‘scent picture’ of the petrol, unlike machines, she’s not confused by other similar smells.
Belinda Jones: So Ellie can pick up an individual scent mixed up with a whole lot of other scents… so it doesn’t matter what odours are put on top of it…She can actually pick that one scent of petrol from within that mixture….… It was very important to us that it didn’t matter what an arsonist could put on top of the petrol she would be able to pick up that odour.
Narration: Ellie has proven that she is highly accurate… but just how sensitive is her nose? Ellie’s about to take her exam for Sensitivity 101. I’ve been dabbed with a tiny drop of petrol. So amongst all the perfumes and deodorants the rest of the students are wearing, how well can she detect eau-de-arsonist. The whiff of petrol I’m wearing is extremely faint – just 0.5 of a microlitre. That’s about 1/50th of a normal drop. But that shouldn’t be a problem for Ellie. Dogs have around 70 times the number of nerve receptors for smell that we have.
Jonica Newby: Well done – I think that deserves an A plus.
Narration: Then again, she has been to the best schools. Ellie comes from a family of dogs that have been specially designed to fight much more than just fires. In a high security facility outside Melbourne, geneticists have been working for a decade to develop the best sniffer dogs in the world. These are the elites of the sniffer dog world. They have the best minds… the best breeding for the job that science can provide. What you are looking at here are the crack troops who will soon be joining the fight against drugs, crime, and even the war on terror…
The Australian Govt has just donated 30 of these ‘crack troops’ to the US Defence Dept to be used in anti-terrorist activities. Incongruous though it seems, these balls of energy will soon be sniffing out explosives, chemical weapons and possibly even weapons of mass destruction…It’s a huge rap for the breeding program.
Director, John van der Loo is proud of its success.
John van der Loo: Yes. This is where the juvenile puppies usually are…we’ve got some six week old puppies here and we’ve got some eight week olds out here….
Q: So this is where Ellie was born?
John van der Loo: Yes. Elly was born here back in '98, …amongst a litter of five. One of her brothers and one of her sisters are detector dogs for Customs. And her mother actually was a detector dog with Customs who has been donated to the US government for the war on drugs.
Q: Pretty illustrious family.
John van der Loo: They certainly are and they're doing a great job by protecting the communities.
Narration: Ellie is a fourth generation product of this unique breeding program. It started in 1993, when scientists from Melbourne University began studying the genetic traits that make a successful sniffer dog.
John van der Loo: Well basically we are looking for animals that love to hunt… very strong hunting drive … And that and playing go hand in hand. So a Labrador loves to play, loves to hunt, and these have been selectively bred from some of the best blood lines in the world, brought together and now in their fourth generation we're really starting to hit the mark with success rates.
Narration: But they also discovered, good genes weren’t enough. Unless the puppies were exposed to the right activities and stresses during a critical period when young, they never reached their potential…the solution?… ‘Boot Camp’ for dogs. These tiny puppies are subjected to a training regime that would terrify most adult dogs. But it works.
John van der Loo: Well prior to the breeding project we used to look at a thousand dogs out there in pounds, shelters and private donations to get one suitable to commence training. Now we're at a point where two out of three born to the program are serving Customs, with an additional, the additional pup serving other agencies. So it's a bit of 90 per cent born to the program are serving their country.
Narration: Ellie’s got the best genetics, has done the hard training and is now proving herself on the job. She may be the only fire dog in Australia…but now she’s been scientifically validated it shouldn’t be long before more firedogs are following in her forensic footsteps…making life for arsonists a lot harder.
From Catalyst - ABC.net.au
Story Contacts
Val Ansett
Email
Fire Investigation & Res. Unit
NSW Fire Brigade
Sydney Australia
She’s a 4 year old Golden Labrador and her super-sensitive nose is able to detect the use of accelerants in starting fires more accurately and more quickly than existing technologies. It has been shown that dogs have nose membranes 70 times more sensitive than humans and a much larger part of their brain is dedicated to scent detection. Her skills are being put to the test by scientists at the Forensics Dept of the University of Technology, Sydney, who have been surprised by their discoveries of the way in which dogs smell. They are attempting to validate Ellie’s accuracy and refine dog training strategies for fire scene investigation
Ellie is the only ‘Fire Dog’ in Australia at present, but she comes from an elite Australian Customs bred gene pool that has produced the best ‘sniffer dogs’ in the world. So it may not be long before a lot more ‘fire dogs’ are turning up at fire scenes, making life a lot more difficult for arsonists.
TRANSCRIPT
Narration: Arson. It’s one of the easiest crimes to commit, and one of the hardest to solve. It’s the near perfect crime; one that consumes it’s own evidence. But things are beginning to hot up for the arsonists…
Jonica Newby: Well I’m here at a house fire where the Fire Dept are running a major fire simulation. Now for the last 4 years they have been trialing a new detection device and they are pretty excited about it. It’s mobile. It’s reliable. And it’s proving far more sensitive than any of their existing technologies.
Narration: This smart new piece of bio-technology is known as Ellie. She’s Australia’s first and only fire ‘sniffer dog’. And her incredible sense of smell is about to be put to a critical test.
Val Ansett (Handler): Probably about half an hour to an hour after the fire has burnt and been extinguished then I’ll take Ellie in.
Narration: When a fire is extinguished, extreme heat followed by drenching water means few forensic clues are left behind. Finding the minute traces of petroleum residue that would point to arson is often extremely hard for investigators…Enter Ellie the ‘Fire Dog’.
Handler: That’ll do. Good girl…That’s the way….Find it…girl. Good girl….
Narration: Even for Ellie this room poses a complex challenge. In a world where even the carpet and furniture are made from petrochemicals, can she distinguish the one petrochemical that started the fire?
Handler: Ok here. Good girl.
Narration: It’s a difficult test, but Ellie soon finds the source.
Val Ansett: You can actually see down there that we’ve got a broken bottle with a wick in it. Ellie will go in here and within one minute she has pinpointed the exact spot to take a sample. Whereas in the past we were taking samples from four or five different points, having to analyse each one at quite a high cost… Whereas now he can look at one area, just concentrate on that area and if it fits with everything else that he believes started the fire then he can pretty well close the case right then.
Narration: Like any other new forensic tool, Ellie’s abilities are being subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation. The samples she identifies are taken back to the University of Technology, Sydney, for analysis. Forensic scientist Belinda Jones is in charge of the study.
Belinda Jones:.So after we have prepared the sample, this is the room we come into and this is the machine that will analyse and identify the components in petrol.
Narration: By correlating Ellie’s findings with the lab results Belinda has discovered that Ellie is far more accurate than their Gas Spectrometre. What’s more, because Ellie responds to a whole ‘scent picture’ of the petrol, unlike machines, she’s not confused by other similar smells.
Belinda Jones: So Ellie can pick up an individual scent mixed up with a whole lot of other scents… so it doesn’t matter what odours are put on top of it…She can actually pick that one scent of petrol from within that mixture….… It was very important to us that it didn’t matter what an arsonist could put on top of the petrol she would be able to pick up that odour.
Narration: Ellie has proven that she is highly accurate… but just how sensitive is her nose? Ellie’s about to take her exam for Sensitivity 101. I’ve been dabbed with a tiny drop of petrol. So amongst all the perfumes and deodorants the rest of the students are wearing, how well can she detect eau-de-arsonist. The whiff of petrol I’m wearing is extremely faint – just 0.5 of a microlitre. That’s about 1/50th of a normal drop. But that shouldn’t be a problem for Ellie. Dogs have around 70 times the number of nerve receptors for smell that we have.
Jonica Newby: Well done – I think that deserves an A plus.
Narration: Then again, she has been to the best schools. Ellie comes from a family of dogs that have been specially designed to fight much more than just fires. In a high security facility outside Melbourne, geneticists have been working for a decade to develop the best sniffer dogs in the world. These are the elites of the sniffer dog world. They have the best minds… the best breeding for the job that science can provide. What you are looking at here are the crack troops who will soon be joining the fight against drugs, crime, and even the war on terror…
The Australian Govt has just donated 30 of these ‘crack troops’ to the US Defence Dept to be used in anti-terrorist activities. Incongruous though it seems, these balls of energy will soon be sniffing out explosives, chemical weapons and possibly even weapons of mass destruction…It’s a huge rap for the breeding program.
Director, John van der Loo is proud of its success.
John van der Loo: Yes. This is where the juvenile puppies usually are…we’ve got some six week old puppies here and we’ve got some eight week olds out here….
Q: So this is where Ellie was born?
John van der Loo: Yes. Elly was born here back in '98, …amongst a litter of five. One of her brothers and one of her sisters are detector dogs for Customs. And her mother actually was a detector dog with Customs who has been donated to the US government for the war on drugs.
Q: Pretty illustrious family.
John van der Loo: They certainly are and they're doing a great job by protecting the communities.
Narration: Ellie is a fourth generation product of this unique breeding program. It started in 1993, when scientists from Melbourne University began studying the genetic traits that make a successful sniffer dog.
John van der Loo: Well basically we are looking for animals that love to hunt… very strong hunting drive … And that and playing go hand in hand. So a Labrador loves to play, loves to hunt, and these have been selectively bred from some of the best blood lines in the world, brought together and now in their fourth generation we're really starting to hit the mark with success rates.
Narration: But they also discovered, good genes weren’t enough. Unless the puppies were exposed to the right activities and stresses during a critical period when young, they never reached their potential…the solution?… ‘Boot Camp’ for dogs. These tiny puppies are subjected to a training regime that would terrify most adult dogs. But it works.
John van der Loo: Well prior to the breeding project we used to look at a thousand dogs out there in pounds, shelters and private donations to get one suitable to commence training. Now we're at a point where two out of three born to the program are serving Customs, with an additional, the additional pup serving other agencies. So it's a bit of 90 per cent born to the program are serving their country.
Narration: Ellie’s got the best genetics, has done the hard training and is now proving herself on the job. She may be the only fire dog in Australia…but now she’s been scientifically validated it shouldn’t be long before more firedogs are following in her forensic footsteps…making life for arsonists a lot harder.
From Catalyst - ABC.net.au
Story Contacts
Val Ansett
Fire Investigation & Res. Unit
NSW Fire Brigade
Sydney Australia