Meet the Miami-Dade K9 search team deployed to Maui, Hawaii after the fatal wildfires

Omar Rodríguez Ortiz
·1 min read

A Miami-Dade canine search team was deployed Wednesday to Hawaii in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires that have killed more than 100 people.

Canine search specialist John Long of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and his dog Cable, a 3-year-old golden retriever, have been assigned by FEMA the daunting task of finding the dead in the hard-hit town of Lāhainā.

The heroic pair was deployed in 2021 to search for victims of the Surfside condo collapse that killed 98.

Long said he and Cable have been involved in hundreds of rescues. And his unit, the Urban Search and Rescue Team Florida Task Force One, has been deployed nationally and internationally for disasters including the Oklahoma City bombing, World Trade Center collapse, Hurricane Katrina, and earthquakes in Colombia, Turkey and Haiti.

“We have had all kinds of different deployments, from helping law enforcement to dealing with FEMA’s missions of finding people that are lost or missing,” Long said. “It’s definitely a big job.”

Cable, a 3-year-old golden retriever, was deployed with its handler, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue canine search specialist John Long, on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023 to Maui, Hawaii in the aftermath of the wildfires that killed over 100 people.
Cable, a 3-year-old golden retriever, was deployed with its handler, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue canine search specialist John Long, on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023 to Maui, Hawaii in the aftermath of the wildfires that killed over 100 people.