Barksdale Profile: Firefighters Challenge Airmen
By:
Updated: October 21, 2011
First Lieutenant Marcus Mobley quit his day job as a navigator at Barksdale Air Force Base.
But just for a
couple hours to compete in the first Wing Fire Muster Challenge.
"I'm glad I'm not a
firefighter. That's all it boils down to. They do an incredible job out there"
said First Lieutenant Mobley.
Eleven teams from
the 2nd Bomb Wing strapped on fire gear and did Barksdale Fire Department jobs.
"We have some pilots
we have carpenters, communications specialists. I think they'll have a new
perspective on what we do have to do. And what we train for. Each event
simulates something we do on the job" says Staff Sergeant Steven O'Brien, a fire
department crew chief.
The first obstacle:
the hotel pack carry.
"If there's a high
rise building on fire we have to carry 200 foot of inch and quarter size hose up
some stairs" says O'Brien.
Second: hoisting
tools.
"If we're on a roof
where we have to hoist with a bag."
Next up, the Kaiser
sled.
"It's a real killer.
It's basically a big slab of lead that you have to beat down six feet across. It
simulates old school firefighting where you had to chop holes in the roof to do
vertical ventilation on buildings."
Then it's a 100 hose
pull of a charged handline (which means really hard to drag!) and then
dragging a 185 pound dummy to simulate a victim being pulled out of harm's way.
"It looks pretty
easy at first but once you put it all together, the individual competitors have
to dig deep to go through this whole thing."
The average
individual competitor today will finish the 2nd Bomb Wing Challenge in about
five minutes. But the entire challenge is based on the ESPN firefighters
challenge. Last year's winner finished about 1:20.
"Its not an easy
job. We have the benefit of adrenaline when there's a call that comes through".
