Firefighters’ Water Wars Competition Features Events Designed To Test Department’S Skills

The old-fashioned bathtub stood waiting, full of water and hoisted up on cement blocks, in a dirt field next to the main Post Falls fire station.

A high platform with a barrel on it stood nearby, and a pipe stretched from the bottom of the barrel into an empty garbage can on the ground below.

An electronic timer beeped and four firefighters took off. One stopped at the tub and began filling the canvas buckets the team was carrying.

The bucket brigade began.

While the good-natured crowd hollered “Full buckets! Full buckets!” the team passed the buckets from the firefighter at the tub to the firefighter at the bottom of a ladder to the firefighter halfway up the ladder, to the firefighter on the platform, who then dumped the water into the barrel and threw the buckets back to the person at the tub.

When the garbage can below was full, the clock stopped. It usually took about two minutes.

The bucket brigade was part of a water competition the Post Falls Fire Protection District is holding this weekend. The event drew 15 teams of four people each, including many from Canada.

The trick to the bucket brigade “is just getting full buckets,” said firefighter Mike Bond of the Salmo, British Columbia, team. And his chief, John Soriat, wasn’t quite filling the buckets, he said.

“I had the hardest job!” said Soriat, laughing.

“Oh, there’s tricks to everything,” said Lt. Ben Theard of the Post Falls Fire District. “On this, it’s full buckets. If you can take full buckets up every time, you’ll win.”

In another event, called the “make and break,” competitors have to connect fire hoses quickly, knock down a target with water, then disconnect the hoses, connect them differently, and knock down another target. The trick is knowing how to quickly connect the hoses without them coming apart, Theard said.

When the water came on before the hoses were completely connected, competitors ended up soaked.

“Probably the biggest crowd pleaser is the beer barrel,” said Greg Bennett of the Post Falls Fire Protection District. “That’s nozzle control.”

In that event, a beer barrel is suspended overhead so that it slides along a wire. Two teams, each wielding hoses, face off, trying to use the water pressure to shove the barrel over their opponents’ heads.

There are three divisions: firefighters, women and teens. The firefighters are both men and women. The women’s division is mostly the wives and girlfriends of male firefighters. The teens’ division is made up of both genders. Other fire districts also hold water competitions, although Post Falls’ is the best, said Lloyd Johnson of the North Shore, British Columbia, fire department.

The games help build skills and teamwork for the firefighters, said T.D. Hiiva, who helps organize the event.

“We end up building good friendships,” said Burt Demaskoff of the Castlegar, British Columbia, team.

That’s one of the main reasons the Post Falls district holds the competition, Hiiva said.

“It’s a big extended family, basically. Everybody down here knows everybody else,” he said. “It’s a release. We’re doing this day in and day out, fighting fires, and this is our fun time.”