Or - There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.
Part II
We finally got to the highlight of the Festival…The Firefighter Combat Challenge. This is an International event and tours cities across the United States. This was one of the qualifying events for the eventual Championship Challenge to be held in Phoenix, Arizona.
This IS a grueling course. Hahaha, I was thinking, before it started, that I could have done that when I was a young dogie. Uh, no. Nope. No way. It wouldn't have happened.
No, I quickly disabused myself of that notion. Not to say I couldn't have done it had I trained for it. No, I'm saying that, given the shape I was in, I would have taken five minutes or more to finish what these guys were doing in two or so minutes.
What'd they have to do?
Well, wearing all their gear to include the face mask and oxygen tank, they had to:
1. Pick up a fire hose that was coiled together and sling it over their shoulder and THEN race up three flights of stairs.
2. Once atop the stairs, they had to set the hose down and the begin pulling up another hose hanging on a rope. The other hose? It weights 50 lbs.
3. Once they have the hose up and on the deck of the third floor, they then had to race down the stairs touching each step. If they missed one it was a penalty of four seconds.
4. Once down, they then ran over to the metal slide…see that thing just to the left of the blue box in the foreground of the picture below? Looks like two ramps? They had to grab a nine-pound sledge and then, standing with one foot on each of those ramps pound on a dead weight moving it five feet before they could stop.
Oh, if they didn't lay the mallet down with some part of it touching that black mat just above the blue box, it was another time penalty.
5. Once they had the dead weight moved, they had to race to the other end of the course, see where the truck is? and grab a charged (as in, it had water in it ready to go) fire hose and haul it back up the course. They had to go through the saloon doors, see them? Like two side-by-side panels suspended between two poles? And once through the doors they had to turn the hose on and knock out the simulated fire in front of them.
6. Then they had to move to their respective lane, red or blue, and pick up a 175lb dummy and haul him back to the finish line at the truck.
Hahaha, it's a lot harder to do than to explain!!!
Today was just individual competition. Tomorrow will be the team competitions.
They had competitors from Montana, Idaho, Canada, Washington AND Brazil.
Here's one of Seattle's Finest.
Can ya tell she's with a Seattle FD?
12th Man - Seattle Seahawks
They introduced all the competitors, men and women.
And then they read them, and us, the rules.
And the first two competitors were off!!
Mind you, they're wearing ALL their gear and hefting that HEAVY hose over their shoulder and then racing to the top of the 'building'.
See the red and blue round things just in front in the picture below? They'll have to haul those 50lb monsters up, hand-over-hand, AFTER they've run up all those stairs carrying that HEAVY hose and wearing all their gear.
Ouch!!
Blue is up and hauling away while Red is making it up the final few steps.
Now they're down the steps and swinging away with those sledges. They've got to move that steel bar five feet. Oh, and if they get a bad hit and hit the handles instead of the heads of the sledges…that's a time penalty.
Need a little concentration and skill, too.
While wearing ALL their gear.
Here's a shot of two more competitors, hauling up the ropes. And you can see how tall the tower is.
Using good form and hauling away. That looks a heckufva lot easier than it is.
Working the steel sled. See the tape on the handle of the sledge? Hit that and you're penalized.
While wearing ALL your gear.
Hauling the hose through the saloon doors and then putting out the fire.
Here's the first Brazilian putting out the fire.
He had the best time for the men that day. Oh, I think they said the World's Record for the Men was something like 1:19.
Unbelievable.
His time was an exceedingly respectable and outstanding...
Those hose ain't easy. Water on, fire out, water off.
Oofffph.
So, they've pounded the steel sled, ran the course, hauled the hose back and now its pick-up a 175lb dead-weight dummy and haul it back to the finish line.
Brown suit began to lap Black suit in this event. He did end up beating Black suit who had led all the way up until the dummy drag.
See the dummies feet? The feet have to go over the finish line to trigger the stop clock to, er, stop.
This guy is one of the three from Brazil. Note the different fire suit he has on. It's definitely lighter looking than the ones the North Americans had on.
He was leading the pack with his time when we left. We heard, was we were walking back that the Brazilians had won the competition. He was like 1:57 seconds. Amazing!! These Brazilians were in GREAT shape.
Here's one of the firefighters running back to get the hose and drag it back. They're breathing hard and heavy with those masks on and some of them sorta walked this part.
This is one of the ladies who competed. Them dummies ain't easy to haul around.
This Firefighter was on track to set a new World's Record!!
Get his feet past the line!!! A few feet more!!!
AND SHE DID IT!! SHE SET A NEW WOMAN'S WORLD RECORD!!
The previous World's Record for females in this competition was 2:43 something.
And she collapsed after they got her mask off.
It takes a lot out of ya.
Don't judge. We saw a couple of the men take a little swoon at the end of this course, too.
This was a lot of fun to watch. Some really great efforts and a lot of good camaraderie. A chance for the Firefighters to show off and network. And a chance for the public to see how tough their jobs can be.
We had a great time.
It's a good life.
Hooah!!
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