An Ashcroft firefighter who took part in his first FireFit Regional Championship last month is already looking forward to next year’s event.
Deputy Chief Greg Hiltz of Ashcroft Fire Rescue says that he had talked about doing the challenge a couple of years ago, after not being able to attend the regionals in Kamloops in 2019.
“I’ve always wanted to do it, so I started training with the Cache Creek firefighters. They do FireFit training on Wednesdays, which is extra training and practise for what you’re going to do in the competition.”
The FireFit competition is a fitness challenge designed for firefighters, with participants wearing full turnout gear weighing between 40 and 50 pounds. The gear includes full breathing apparatus, and individual participants have to do the challenge on oxygen: run out, and your race is over.
The event starts with a run up a six-storey flight of stairs, with each participant carrying a 40-pound hose reel pack on their shoulder. At the top, they have to haul another 40-pound hose reel to the top via a rope, then run back down to a force machine that simulates forcing a door open, and use a sledgehammer to hit a block in the middle until the “door” opens.
They then run a slalom through fake hydrants, grab a charged hose line, and pull it 100 feet to shoot at a target with the water. The final task is to pick up a 175-pound dead weight dummy — Rescue Randy — and drag it 150 feet to the finish line.
Four Cache Creek firefighters took part in the FireFit regional championship last year, and Hiltz says that they have some gear to simulate a few of the challenges.
READ MORE: Four Cache Creek firefighters heading to FireFit Championships
“They have a homemade rope pull simulator, so you can stretch rope out in the fire hall and simulate the rope pull so that you’re getting the motions down and have some experience when it’s time to do it. They have a Rescue Randy, so I practiced dragging him around.”
Since there’s nowhere locally that has six flights of stairs, Hiltz trained for that portion of the event by running up and down the stairs on the Hog’s Back (the bottom section of the Three Meadows Trail) on the Mesa in Ashcroft. “Some days I did it in pants and boots, some days with a jacket, and some days with full gear, which has got to be 40 pounds. The breathing apparatus is extra, another 20 pounds.”
While the various components of the challenge seem straightforward, Hiltz says there are things you have to watch out for.
“Going up the stairs you can take as many at a time as you want to, but coming down you have to hit every step, for safety reasons. And you have to drag Rescue Randy; you can’t pick him up and carry him.”
Hiltz says that the experience of the Cache Creek firefighters he trained with was a help. Several were planning on going to Courtenay, where there were firefighters from B.C., Alberta, and the Yukon competing, but for various reasons that didn’t work out. “A couple came to watch and cheer me on, though.”
That wasn’t the only support Hiltz got.
“I found a lot of camaraderie. Everyone was there to have fun and obviously compete, but we’re brothers and sisters, and everyone is there to look out for you. As a first-timer I was picking people’s brains, getting more info as to what to expect, and everyone was pretty easygoing. They’d help you out with whatever you asked.”
Asked if he had a time in mind to complete the course in, Hiltz laughs.
“[Cache Creek firefighter] Al Wiens had a time of 3.02 [at last year’s regionals], and I kind of had an idea where I wanted to finish, but not knowing what to expect it was ‘I want to finish.’ I can work on my times later. When I was getting close to Al’s time I was out of gas, but I wanted to push and at least tie him. I was close: 3.06.”
He adds that the fastest time this year was 1.22. “Those young fellows can motor. They’re on a dead run. They’re not stopping. But it’s not easy, that’s for sure. I was walking most of it, but I know now where I can make up a couple of seconds here, a couple of seconds there. I’ll train a bit more and see if I can get under three minutes next year.”
The regionals in Courtenay were a qualifying event for the international competition, and Hiltz says he got an invitation in a wild card spot. While he can’t make it to that competition, he has his sights on next year’s regionals in Kamloops.
“I’m planning on going next year, and I’d love to have a team. The individual competition is fun and I’m definitely doing that again, but the team has four people so you can split up the exercises, and everybody does one or two.
“I’m absolutely glad I did it, but they say it’s the toughest four minutes in sports. To do each event singly is hard enough; combining them is definitely a challenge.”
editorial@accjournal.ca
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