STERLING, Mass. - Members of the Sterling Fire Department's dive team have responded to recovery efforts in Lunenburg and Harvard in the last 12 days. They said the sonar technology they use makes a huge difference when responding to emergencies.

What You Need To Know

  • Members of the Sterling Fire Departmenst responded to two District 8 Dive Team activations within the past two weeks

  • The recovery efforts were conducted in Lunenburg and Harvard

  • Sterling FD utilizes Sidee Scan Sonar tecnology purchased through a Homeland Secuirty Grant during search and rescue missions

  • Other fire departments in District 8 who now have the sae technology on their boats are West Boylston and Fitchburg

Rob Nickerson and Brandon Hamilton are dive rescue specialists out of Sterling.

Their 'Marine 1' boat is equipped with Side Scan Sonar technology purchased through a Homeland Security grant.

Sterling Fire is part of Massachusetts District 8, the tactical organization of fire departments in North-Central Mass which covers more than 30 cities and towns.

The dive specialists say the side scan and down scan tools have become essential in underwater search and recovery efforts.

The sonar projects down to the bottom of the body of water to produce an image in real time for responders they say one of the hardest parts is just knowing what to look for.

"This is a good example of the down scan and side scan sonar," Hamilton said showing the images. "So we always look at the water column in the ground and we look for objects that aren't similar to everything else. So in this exact example, this is what a body looks like from down scan. And this was in eight feet of water."

"This technology, what it's done for us is it's really brought down the amount of dive time that we have to put on our divers," Nickerson added. "We can deploy this boat immediately upon scene and run grid work back and forth based on what the last known scene point is. And we'll overlap that quite a bit with the side scan and pick up those objects. And once we do, we can mark it right on here - it grabs your GPS lat and long, and it will also grab a picture of what we're looking at as well."

"This technology, it's really cool. It actually really helps with faster recoveries," Hamilton said. "And it just it's a game changer in the industry."

Hamilton and Nickerson said the dive team trains as much as possible, at least once a month, but usually more in the summer months.

Sterling Fire has been using the side scan technology for more than 10 years. They've recently installed two other older units on boats out of West Boylston and Fitchburg for better coverage in the District 8 region.