On August 8, 2023, high winds and extremely dry conditions sparked four aggressive wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii. Despite the best efforts of firefighters, the fires quickly raged out of control and engulfed the historic town of Lahaina, incinerating approximately 2,200 acres of residential property and 500 acres of commercial businesses. Given little warning, many residents were forced to evacuate through the fire, and 99 residents perished.
Recovery efforts started immediately as approximately 40 human remains detection dogs were rushed to the region to assist in locating those who had died. It was a herculean effort made more challenging by hot weather, dangerous terrain, and the fact many human remains were little more than piles of ash indiscernible to the human eye; but human remains detection dogs don't use their eyes, they use their noses, which contain an estimated 100 million sensory receptor sites compared to just six million in humans.
Walking carefully over the Lahaina wildfire's footprint, sometimes wearing special booties to protect their feet from embers and debris, the dogs barked excitedly to let their handlers know when they detected something. Their reward: a few minutes of play.
Human remains detection dogs have been in use since the 1970s, though their numbers are far fewer compared to detection dogs used in other aspects of law enforcement, such as the detection of explosives, drugs, and even contraband fruits and vegetables.
One of the earliest known uses of a human remains detection dog occurred in Bavaria, Germany in 1808. A farmer named Andreas Bichel was believed to be involved in the disappearance of two women two years apart. The women's clothing was found in Bichel's home, but there was little else to connect him to their disappearance. A policeman walked his hunting dog around Bichel's property, and the dog indicated something amiss in Bichel's woodshed. Inside, beneath a pile of hay, the dead women were found buried in a shallow grave.
The dog that helped convict Andreas Bichel was untrained in human remains detection. Not so Pearl, a yellow Labrador retriever trained by New York State Policeman Jim Suffolk in 1974. Pearl is considered the first dog specifically trained to find human remains, and she did her job well. In one case, Pearl located the remains of a murdered Syracuse College student who had been buried four feet in the ground.
