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13 April 2010, 06:00
A four year old black Labrador from Hertfordshire is one of only 17 dogs in the country that have been specially trained to find out how fires are caused.
CC is a four year old black Labrador who works for Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.
He is the only dog in the county, and in East Anglia, that can detect ignitable substances.
He was recently called to a home in Cambridgeshire which was destroyed by a fire on Thursday night.
Kitted in four protective boots on his paws, he then searched the home to sniff out signs of possible accelerants.
Nikki Harvey has been his handler for the past three years:
“CC was able to search very very quickly for us and to obviously establish for us if there were any of those remaining traceable ignitable liquids in the fire scene far more quickly than what we could as humans. Obviously with the dog’s nose being far better than ours, he is able to do that very quickly.
“The initial training is all around searching for his favourite toy, which in CC’s case is his tennis ball. And then as soon as he is able to do that consistently, and is able to find his tennis ball that he is asked to in training, then we’ll start introducing all the ignitable liquids we want him to find.”