BALTIMORE, Md. – There may not have been any smoke or fire, but there was plenty of adrenalin and sweat as the champions of the first annual Fire-Rescue Competition National Championship posted their winning times.
It was obvious the members of Tamarac, Fla., Fire Rescue crew were thrilled to be named the champions. Their combined winning time was 23 minutes 36 seconds. Their closest competitor, members of the Gainesville, Fla., Fire Department posted a time of 25 minutes 28 seconds.
“It finally came all together,” said Tamarac Lt. Billy Dueler, noting the team has been competing for three years always coming in the top three. They were named the champions at Firehouse Expo 2015 in Baltimore. They’ve been invited back to compete at Firehouse Expo in Nashville next year.
The members of the winning team are Captain Chris Dixon, Driver Engineer Chi Lui, Firefighter Paul Onorati, Firefighter Godson Chery as well as Duesler. The team’s alternate was Firefighter Robert Haney who was expected to be able to fill any of the positions in the team if necessary. The team was accompanied by their chief Steve Stillwell.
“Yeah, they’re a pretty good bunch of guys, most of the time,” Stillwell quipped, obviously proud of his firefighters.
For the second day of the competition, four teams, two from Florida (Gainesville and Tamarac) and two from Tennessee, (Ashland and Pittman Center Community Volunteer Fire Department), were timed as they worked their way through a maze set up in a corner of the Firehouse Expo show floor. They had to search for two down firefighters who were sent in to a mock structure fire looking for a victim. The competitors were acting as Rapid Intervention Teams (RIT) sent into get the down firefighters.
As mice might crawl through a tunnel-like maze, the fire teams hacked through wire entanglements, made their way over an A-Frame obstruction, all the while communicating with their captain and with each other.
Using two-way firefighting radios, SCBAs with obscured face masks, and full turnout gear, the crews made their way to the victims, sounding out all the way.
“Wow, there’s a lot more entanglement this time,” said Lui as he hacked at the wires strung between a wooden frame.
“How is your air supply,” Capt. Dixon questioned the men inside the maze. “It’s low captain,” was the reply from one of the rescuers. The PASS alarms were wailing on both victims during the whole scenario.
Then the radio crackled; “We’ve got one of the victims.”
It was then game on as firefighters Onorati and Chery followed Lui and Duesler in to help affect the firefighter rescue. They were also asked to buddy breath and take the first victim to the window to make the rescue.
The radio then sounded that there was a second firefighter victim that needed to be rescued. Within just a few minutes, the second victim was sent out the window and on to the floor as the last of four bailed out the same window and the clock stopped. The low pressure bells were clanging on all four Tamarac team members.
In an interview after the competition, Dixon said the key to winning the event was all about communications and training – hours and hours of training.
“It feels really good,” Captain Dixon said of the win. “We’ve been working hard for this.”
For Lt. Duesler, the biggest challenge was visability, or lack thereof.
“It was hard not being able to see a thing,” Duesler said. “We had to rely on the radios.” He said he brought in the rope bag and paid it out to mark the path to the victims for the next crew in.
For Lui, the driver/engineer of the career fire department, keeping a level head the whole way was critical to success.
“It was a long maze,” Lui said. “We couldn’t use up all the air just getting in.”
Firefighter Onorati said communications was critical and being situationally aware, knowing when to head in to help with the rescue.
“The hardest part was the unknown,” Onorati said. “We had to constantly keep listening for the updates.”
Firefighter Chery, who was partnered with Onorati to go in as the second crew, also acknowledged that communications was critical to success.
“We had to listen to the first team and get everything done in a certain time frame,” Chery said.
Firefighter Haney was right there in the background, ready to jump in in a moment’s notice. He said he had to train for every different aspect of the competition.
The team will have more than a year to train to defend their championship at Firehouse Expo when it goes to Nashville next year.
And it good friendly competition, the two teams from Tennessee said the trophy will remain in that state next year.
