Putting skills to the test
Wearing full gear, Oshawa firefighter Mario Perrino pulls hand over fist to bring a 42-pound fire hose up a six-storey tower. Perrino, along with his colleagues with Oshawa Fire Services and other fire departments from across the province, was taking part in the FireFit competition at Legend’s Centre.
By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express
Being a firefighter is hard work. Years of training and practice make these men and women ready for the possibility of having to risk life and limb to save someone else’s life.
However, firefighters that came out to the Legends Centre over the weekend were putting their skills and training towards a different goal: bragging rights.
Dozens of firefighters from across the province made their way to the north end arena for the GTA Regional competition of FireFit, which sees men and women tackle an obstacle course that simulates some of the things a firefighter may encounter in the course of their job.
The course sees two firefighters in full gear run head to head. The course starts with the firefighter carrying a full fire hose weighing 42 pounds up six flights of stairs, dropping it into a box and then hoisting up another fire hose from the ground. After, the competitors go back down the tower and hit the Trusty Cook, which simulates a door breach. There, the firefighter will take a mallet and push a steel bar from one side of a platform to another.
Once the bar has been moved, they must run 140 feet to the end of the course, maneuvering around fire hydrants, where the competitor will pick up a fully charged fire hose, bring it back to the halfway mark, and hit a target.
The final part of the course sees the firefighter drag a 165-pound mannequin backwards to the finish line.
Needless to say, those that finish the course are exhausted and left out of breath.
That includes John Catoul, a firefighter for Richmond Hill who has been doing these competitions for about 15 years.
Asked if after that amount of time the course gets any easier, Catoul replied with a slightly out of breath laugh.
“No, it gets harder. You get older, but the course stays the same,” he says, adding that while the course itself does not get any easier, his recovery times have been getting better.
“It’s a matter of working out all year, staying fit all year and then doing specific training. Running stairs, doing dummy drags, dragging the hose…stuff gets more specific closer to race time. But really it’s just working out, staying in shape.”
Nathan Langille, an Oshawa firefighter, also took part in the weekend’s competition. Like Catoul, Langille says the course is a tough one.
“It’s vigorous, it’s as much as you put into it that you’re going to get out of it. No matter what kind of condition you’re in, you’re going to be exhausted when you finish this course. It’s competitive, but it’s competitive because you want to make it,” he says.
“It’s difficult because for these, you’re doing all five of the stages. For a typical fire, you might be doing a search and rescue and getting a victim ventilation, or getting on the roof of an apartment. You’re typically not doing all of these back to back, so it’s very exhausting at the end.”
While, like any event such as this, things can get competitive, Langille adds that at the end of the day, it provides a chance for firefighters to hang out with fellow firefighters…and maybe show off a little.
“It’s great camaraderie, and it’s all for bragging rights against all our friends that we compete against. It’s going to be a great weekend for all of us.”