K-9 Shadow has good scents to sniff out arson

Longmont firefighter Mike Manzo takes his Shadow with him wherever he goes, along with a trusty vial of gasoline.  Manzo’s Shadow is a 9-year-old yellow Labrador retriever trained in fire investigation, and is one of three K-9 arson dogs in Colorado.

Like K-9 Shadow, Manzo, 44,  has a nose for trouble.  In addition to being a firefighter with the Longmont Fire Department for 19 years, Manzo is also a fire investigator, hazardous materials technician, and bomb technician with the Boulder County Bomb Squad.

His career took off after he graduated Denver West High School in ’84 and was hired by Knott Laboratory in Centennial as a testing technician to help engineers investigate and reconstruct accidents.  Although he was only 18 at the time, one of the first cases he worked on was the Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse in Kansas City, where 114 people were killed and more than 200 people were injured.

The job was an important stepping-stone.

“When I was working with Knott I started helping with fire investigations and I got an interest in the fire service at this time,” Manzo says.

Over the next seven years he earned his Emergency Medical Technician license at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver, got his Firefighter One certificate while volunteering for Westminster Fire Department, passed the Denver Regional Council of Governments firefighter exam, and was trained at the Longmont Municipal Fire Training Center before starting out at Station 2 in Longmont.

In 2002 Manzo’s life took another turn when he first met Shadow, a rescued Labrador retriever from Tampa, Fla.  The lab was one of six puppies abandoned in an apartment; four of the six dogs died but Shadow and his brother, Barney, were saved.

Although Manzo said Shadow had a rough beginning, he was quickly spotted by Florida Lab Rescue as a potential arson dog.

“Arson dog trainers like to use labs for this kind of work,” Manzo says. “They test them for how well they deal with their aggression and how well they track a handful of food and that kind of thing.”

Labrador retrievers are noted for having a highly developed sense of smell and the ability to detect minute scents.

From Florida, Shadow was taken to Dixon, Ill. to begin intensive training with the Arson Dog Program, which was started in 1993 through the sponsorship of State Farm Insurance.  The lab then traveled to Portland, Maine to continue training with Manzo and received certification with Maine Specialty Dogs under the guidelines of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.  Since ’93 more than 200 arson dog teams have been certified and placed throughout the U.S. and Canada; Shadow is retested and recertified in Colorado or Maine every year.

Arson dogs are imprinted to detect flammable liquids like gasoline, kerosene or lighter fluids.

“They introduce them to the scent of evaporated gasoline and feed them so they get used to that,” Manzo says.  “Then they put the scent down, they have the dog find that scent, and then they get rewarded with food.”

This scent and reward technique continues to be used for all of Shadow’s feedings and Manzo carries a vial of gasoline and pouch of dog food with him at all times.  Every day, throughout the day, he hides droplets of evaporated gasoline so Shadow can find them and get hand-fed.

“He works everyday for his food and he’s always got to find an ignitable liquid to eat,” Manzo says.

The goal of arson dogs like Shadow is to go to an extinguished fire, sniff for the scent of flammable liquids, and then point to the exact location of evidence that could link someone to the fire.  Shadow and Manzo investigate over 100 extinguished fires a year.

“There are many fires I’ve been on that are burned away to nothing and Shadow finds something,” Manzo says.

Once Shadow works a fire scene by sniffing through the debris and sitting down to point to an accelerant, Manzo collects samples such as pieces of carpet, wood or concrete that are sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab for analysis.  The CBI lab results help fire and police officials determine the cause of the fire and whether it may have been intentionally set.

Over the past eight years Shadow has assisted with the arrests of 152 people and has assisted with many complex fire scenes.  Some of the biggest cases Shadow has worked include the 2002 Big Elk fire in Lyons, where he detected fuel leaking from a Jeep, the large-scale fire of Cheyenne that burned a portion of the city’s downtown business area in 2004, and the 2008 arson home fire and murder of college student Linnea Dick in Fort Collins.

Longmont Public Safety Chief Mike Butler says Shadow is used for the Longmont community as well as other communities that need the lab’s arson detection skills.

“There are instances that without Shadow we would not have been able to complete investigations to the level that we completed them,” he says.

Shadow is considered a law enforcement officer and wears a badge and protective Kevlar vest donated by the students of Central Elementary School in Longmont who raised over $1,000 for the vest.  Shadow frequently travels to schools throughout Colorado with Manzo to talk about arson dogs and give educational fire safety talks.  They also participate in the Aurora Santa Project that donates gifts to children in need.

Manzo and Shadow are always on the job and work 48-hour shifts with the Longmont Fire Department.  The two are then on call every other day of the week, all day long.  Shadow lives with Manzo and his wife, Bobbi, on 2.5 acres in northern Colorado, where the Manzos have four children and three other dogs.

“I love the fact that Shadow has a very important job that he takes very serious,” Manzo says.  “When he’s not working he’s a very big part of our family, and I basically love everything about Shadow.”

Email: evm@infionline.net