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Separated by LA Wildfires, a Happy Reunion for Some Pets, Owners

Serena Null is reunited with her cat Domino, who was burned in the Eaton Fire, at Pasadena Humane, an animal shelter in Pasadena, California, on January 17, 2025. (AFP)
Serena Null is reunited with her cat Domino, who was burned in the Eaton Fire, at Pasadena Humane, an animal shelter in Pasadena, California, on January 17, 2025. (AFP)
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Separated by LA Wildfires, a Happy Reunion for Some Pets, Owners

Serena Null is reunited with her cat Domino, who was burned in the Eaton Fire, at Pasadena Humane, an animal shelter in Pasadena, California, on January 17, 2025. (AFP)
Serena Null is reunited with her cat Domino, who was burned in the Eaton Fire, at Pasadena Humane, an animal shelter in Pasadena, California, on January 17, 2025. (AFP)

When Serena Null saw the flames roaring toward her family home in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, she ran to find her pet Domino, but the cat eluded her grasp.

"We could see the fire from the front door, and so we just didn't have enough time, and we had to leave him," the 27-year-old Null said.

The ferocious blaze reduced her mother-in-law's house to ashes, and a search of the blackened rubble the following day proved fruitless. Null feared she would never see her green-eyed friend again.

But on Friday, to her amazement, she and Domino were reunited.

"I just was so relieved and just so happy that he was here," a tearful Null told AFP outside the NGO Pasadena Humane, where Domino -- suffering singed paws, a burnt nose and a high level of stress -- had been taken after being rescued.

Domino is one of several hundred pets brought to the center as the Eaton fire roared through Altadena, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes in such a rush that many left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Pasadena Humane was accustomed to dealing with crises, but the sudden explosion in demand was without precedent.

"We've never had to take 350 at once in one day before," said the center's Kevin McManus. "It's been really overwhelming."

- Search and rescue -

Many animals were delivered by their owners, who had lost their homes and had to find temporary housing for pets while they themselves stayed in hotels or shelters.

But others were brought by rescue workers and volunteers. The center says on its website that when it receives a report of a pet left behind, it sends "search and rescue teams as quickly as possible in areas that are safe to enter."

The center opened up as much space as it could to accommodate the influx, even placing some pets in offices.

And it was not just dogs and cats, McManus said. There were species rarely seen in an animal shelter -- like a pony, which spent a night in the center.

More than 10 days after the fires began raging through Los Angeles, the center still houses some 400 animals, including rabbits, turtles, lizards and birds, including a huge green, red and blue macaw.

Many of the pets' owners, still without permanent housing, come to the center to visit their animal friends -- people like Winston Ekpo, who came to see his three German shepherds, Salt, Pepper and Sugar.

As firefighters in the area make progress, many animal owners are able to come and recover their pets, tears of sadness turning to tears of joy.

- Back home -

The center's website posts photos of recovered animals, including information on the time and place where they were rescued.

McManus said some 250 pets have so far been returned to their owners.

One of them, curiously, was Bombon, who had actually been lost long before the fires.

The Chihuahua mix went missing from its Altadena home in November, said 23-year-old Erick Rico.

He had begun to resign himself to never seeing Bombon again.

Then one day a friend told him he had seen a picture on the Pasadena Humane website that caught his attention.

When Rico saw it, he was so excited he couldn't sleep that night -- "it looked exactly like him," he said -- and he arrived at the center early the following morning.

When he saw his owners, Bombon "started crying a lot, wagging his tail and everything. He was very, very happy."

After the painful days of uncertainty, Rico too finally felt relief. "Now I'm just happy that he's back home."

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Varieties

Scientist Bottles Smell of Bones to Help Solve Cold Cases

Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
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Scientist Bottles Smell of Bones to Help Solve Cold Cases

Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman

A Belgian research scientist is working with the federal police to create a scent that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains.

Clement Martin has already isolated the smell of decomposing human flesh and that is now used to train Belgium's cadaver dogs.

But once the soft tissue has disappeared, the scent molecules of the remaining bones become significantly fewer, scientific researcher Martin told Reuters.

"Bones smell different over the years too. A 3-year-old bone will smell different to a 10-year-old one and even 20 years," he said.

Skeletal remains are porous too and absorb smells from the surrounding environment, from the soil to pine trees.

"In the situation of cold cases, there was a gap. Our dogs were not able to find dried bones," Kris Cardoen, head of federal police dog training, told Reuters.

At a police training centre outside Brussels, inspector Kristof Van Langenhove and his springer spaniel Bones demonstrated part of the training with Martin's corpse scent.

Cardoen hid some tissues between cinder blocks and only contaminated a few. The dog then barked when he found the smell.

"The scent of death is one of the three tools we use during the basic training of our human remains dog," Cardoen said.

Cadaver dogs require 1,000 hours of training and the country only ever has four at any one time.

Martin is using different samples of dried bones to develop the smell, including those of an unidentified man found in a suitcase, which are kept in a glass cylinder to allow the molecules to permeate an enclosed space ready for extraction.

"It's a bit like a perfumer developing his perfume, he's going to mix different aromas," Martin said.