Firefighting dog Titan has been a resounding success in helping to uncover the causes of suspicious fires, writes Rebecca Smith.

Titan and handler Nick Busby have attended 35 fires in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire since their training in March.

The dog is used to sniff out accelerants that may have been used to start fires. He can detect petrol, diesel and paraffin, along with other chemicals.

Mr Busby has become very attached to Titan, who is one of ten fire dogs in the UK. He said: "There is an enormous amount of trust between us. He has matured and grown with his job. He loves it and becomes a different dog when he is working. "He lives at home with me but is not allowed in the house - he can't be spoilt."

Mr Busby said Titan was so dedicated that when he attended a fire in a food factory, he sniffed out the cause of the fire and ignored the food - something a normal dog would find very difficult.

Mr Busby said: "When he does something like that, it makes you very proud that he is going about his work so well."

Titan has attended some very high-profile fires, including an arson attack on Unigate Dairies, in Abingdon Road, Oxford, when 19 vehicles were destroyed in a suspected animal rights attack. He was able to confirm the presence of an accelerant then and after a similar attack at Tadmarton Poultry, near Banbury.

Mr Busby said: "He has helped prove how useful the dogs can be to the fire service. He found the cause of a fire in a warehouse in half an hour that would have taken hundreds of man-hours to find."

Story date: Wednesday 29 December

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.