Hawaii fires: highly trained dogs on mission to find victims
- Specialised search dogs helping in the search for victims of last week’s deadly wildfires in Maui have undergone a year of intense training
- These dogs can distinguish human remains from those of pets and other animals
But it also takes a dog born with the particular personality needed for the job to find remains of the missing and help bring closure for anguished families, said Mary Cablk, an expert in detection and systems at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada, who has trained hundreds of canines, designed training programmes for handlers and still goes out on dozens of searches a year with her own dogs.
“Dogs that really want to play, that are obsessive about their toy, that are confident and agile, that are not afraid of loud noises or weird surfaces, bring a lot to the table,” she said. Cablk is not involved in the Maui recovery operation.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) urban search rescue teams had 20 dogs on the ground as of Monday supporting state and local officials combing through the ashes.
Jeremy Greenberg, FEMA’s director of operations, said on a call with reporters on Monday that the treacherous conditions on Maui meant that the search is difficult.
Greenberg underscored that while searchers understand that families are desperate to know the fate of missing loved ones, they must “conduct that search in a safe and respectful manner.”
