SUNDERLAND — The newest member of the Sunderland Fire Department located and rescued a lost hiker on Mount Toby over the weekend.

The Fire Department was dispatched to the woods around the base of Mount Toby at around 6:20 p.m. on Saturday for a report of a lost hiker. The department responded with its utility vehicle, all-terrain vehicle and utility task vehicle, as well as K-9s Ranger and Maze. Maze had just received her certification about two weeks earlier.

Upon arriving to the general location where the hiker’s cellphone pinged, the Fire Department opted to deploy Maze for an air scent search due to the hot temperatures and how long the hiker had been lost. When she found the scent, Deputy Chief Mike Zeoli said the department’s new K-9 immediately got to work. She was accompanied by firefighter Matt Manheim, who has trained both Ranger and Maze, alongside Lt. Cody Jones.

“Maze does a beeline. She catches the scent in the air and she doesn’t follow any path, she just goes straight through,” Zeoli recounted. “Some of the terrain was difficult for our firefighters to get to, but Maze went as straight as she could. The victim wasn’t on a trail, they had gone off trail.”

After 20 minutes and covering more than a mile of ground, Maze found the hiker, who was guided back to the utility vehicle and driven out of the woods.

Maze is the newest member of the Sunderland Fire Department, having joined her brother and the rest of the crew at just 10 months old this spring.

Manheim introduced Ranger to the department in summer 2024 — the dog was his personal pet before he saw Ranger’s potential — and trained him as a search-and-rescue specialist. Maze, on the other hand, has been trained as an “air scent K-9,” which the Fire Department said allows her to track “acres of terrain in a short amount of time.”

While there are other fire departments around the state who have K-9s, Zeoli said Ranger and Maze are the only live-find search-and-rescue dogs attached to fire departments in Massachusetts. Live-find means locating a living person and returning them home safely, while other examples of fire department dogs include arson dogs and those that search for human remains.

Zeoli estimated the Sunderland Fire Department is called out for a lost hiker seven or eight times a year. If you are out hiking and find yourself lost in the woods, Zeoli emphasized that it is important that you stay where you are and call 911, as the department has the equipment and training to rescue you.

“So many times we’re chasing people through the woods,” he said, noting it is especially important to call before it gets dark outside. “Once you find that you are lost, call for help.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.