Called “The Toughest Two Minutes in Sports” by ESPN, the Firefighter Combat Challenge is coming to Evansville for a fifth year, courtesy of Old National Bank. From noon to 4 p.m. on Sept. 27 and 28, residents can watch competing firefighting teams race against themselves and against time on a grueling obstacle course that includes scaling a five-story tower and rescuing a 175-pound dummy—all in full gear. There is no charge to attend the Challenge, which will be held at Riverside Dr. and Cherry St. Additionally, for the younger crowd there is a smaller scale Kid’s Challenge, sponsored by Fifth Third Bank.
Weighed down by their gear, the firefighters compete either as relay teams or as individuals and race to complete a set of five tasks that are all designed to test the limits of their physical strength. It also gives spectators a chance to see exactly what challenges firefighters face on the job. The Combat Challenge travels to several locations all over the U.S. and is expanding into other areas of the world, including Argentina, Germany, New Zealand and South Africa.
Competitors begin by climbing to the top of a tower that rises to five stories while carrying a 100-foot hose that weighs 44 pounds; once they reach the top they must hoist a 45-pound hose roll to the top of the tower, and then race back down to the ground. The firefighters then simulate forced entry into a building by using a 160-pound steel beam and a mallet. They demonstrate their ability to walk with a fully charged fire hose and accurately spray a target. Then the competitors must move on to the final challenge: the victim rescue. Hauling a life-sized dummy, they must race to the finish line.
According to the Challenge’s official website, this rigorous competition originated in Maryland in 1974 when Chief David Gratz of Montgomery County saw a need to develop a standardized test for firefighting applicants. He needed a way to validate the physical ability of those individuals to perform the rigorous activities that are essential to firefighting. He approached doctors working at the Human Performance Laboratory at the Sports Medicine Center of the University of Maryland to develop such a test.
By 1976, Dr. Paul Davis and Dr. Dotson, two of the doctors working with Gratz, had designed what they called a “criterion task test” that challenged firefighters to complete five tasks common to the profession, finding that an individual’s fitness was directly related to their performance in these tests. However, it wasn’t until 1991 that Davis had the idea to make the CTT into a competition. Remembering the competitive nature of the firefighters who undertook the test, he thought that a contest based on the CTT would be an ideal way to demonstrate the difficult and unique challenges that firefighters face in their line of work.
On May 5 of that year, teams from five Washington, D.C., metropolitan area fire departments competed in what would be the predecessor to today’s Firefighter Combat Challenge. They gathered at the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute, where Davis and Dotson had begun work on the very first beginnings of the Challenge, the CTT. The competition was a hit with the crowd of spectators—several hundred people came to watch. A team from Prince William County, Va., won that first competition, and the Challenge has been growing in scope and extending its reach ever since.
If you are interested in learning more about the Firefighting Combat Challenge, visit the official website: www.firefighter-challenge.com.
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while carrying a 100-foot hose that weighs 44 pounds; once they reach the top they must hoist a 45-pound hose roll to the top of the tower, and then race back down to the ground. The firefighters then simulate forced entry into a building by using a 160-pound steel beam and a mallet. They demonstrate their ability to walk with a fully charged fire hose and accurately spray a target. Then the competitors must move on to the final challenge: the victim rescue. Hauling a life-sized dummy, they must race to the finish line.
