Fun & friendly competition flames firemen’s event at Lebanon Area Fair

It began as a way to fill a hole on the Sunday schedule at the Lebanon Area Fair. 

More than a dozen years later, it has become a tradition.

The annual Lebanon County Firemen’s Competition is open to all firefighters in Lebanon and surrounding counties, according to event organizer Brenda Keller, who helped to create several of the competitions with her husband, Michael Keller, and Shawn Phillips. 

“Fairground officials had come to us and asked us if we could put something in on a Sunday, because that was a day that there was nothing going on,” said Keller. “They wanted us to try and get some attraction out to the community but try to also bring all the fire companies together. So that’s when we came up with the firefighter’s competition.”

The annual free event, held at 1 p.m. Sunday (registration at noon) at the fairground’s track, is a way for firefighters and would-be firefighters from the Lebanon Valley to showcase their skills across various physical competitions. Participation is open to adults 18 and older and youths ages 14-17, 9-13, and 5-9. 

“They’re all physical challenges, but  I’ve seen older gentlemen outbeat the younger kids in these challenges,” Keller said. “It’s the technique they use. And it gives a chance for the younger kids to say, ‘Oh, wow, I never thought of doing it that way.’”

Keller and Mark Sallada, who is a first responder and owner of Annville-based 911 Rapid Response, a long-time sponsor of the event, both said the Firemen’s Competition is a way to showcase what firefighters do when dispatched to a call.

“It shows the public team-building events, showing the public these kinds of events and how we call each other families and do these things in a fun way,” Sallada said. “It shows the public that you just don’t go to classes all the time, you just don’t go to training all the time, you just don’t go on calls all the time. There are other things that are involved with fire companies, like camaraderie.”

Marketing fire companies is another goal of this event. 

“These events are also a kind of marketing tool for fire companies, in my opinion,” Sallada said. “It allows people to see that you can do fun stuff.”

There are individual and team events that showcase physical abilities, demonstrate camaraderie and serve as marketing tools to the general public.

Firemen’s Competition events

One event that demonstrates the life of a firefighter is the single-person, timed-competition titled Quick Dress, which is just as it sounds. Competitors must start with their shoes off, and then get fully dressed in “full turnouts including SCBA gear” as quickly as possible.  

Each competitor claps their hands to stop the timer, after which a judge inspects them to ensure each individual has their gear on properly. “It’s everything they would wear if they are going into a burning building,” Keller explained. 

Keller said the barrel bust demonstrates the prowess of a team, which consists of three participants, to shoot water at a beer keg barrel to move it across a cable line from the starting point to the finish line.

“It’s a water game … women against the men. Sometimes it’s fire company against fire company,” Keller said. “It’s a team of three holding the hose, shooting at our barrel to try, you know, to race it across to the other side.”

While the coupling race event may sound like two individuals in a renaming of a two- or three-legged race, this competition is nothing like that at all, according to Keller. 

She said the coupling race involves the coupling from the end of a fire hose. A two-person timed event, two couplings are placed on two separate cones at the other end of the start line. The first person runs to the cone, grabs a coupling and returns to the starting area. The second person repeats the action to grab the second coupling.

Once the second person returns to the starting area, they then proceed to put the couplings together. The team with the quickest time wins.

The aforementioned challenges are all in the adult division as are Bucket Brigade, Cone Chucking, and Adult Hose Tug of War. Youth events include Kids Tug of War,  Cone Chucking, Bucket Brigade, Flame Fighters, and Kids Obstacle Course. Keller noted the kids competition is popular with young people. 

“Kids just gravitate toward things like this. Kids like to have fun, and do things that are not only fun but also challenging,” she said.

She noted the event also helps educate children about fire fighting and first responder services. 

“My husband Shawn and I did fire prevention throughout the county when we were on the (Lebanon) County Fire Prevention Committee. And it was always important to go out to the community and educate the kids not to be afraid of firefighters if something happened in their community,” Keller said. “So this is another way to bring the kids in to educate them and say, ‘Hey, this is what your firefighter does.’ So if you see them in this uniform or allowing them to play these games, they’re more educated.”

Sallada stated a reason to include young competitors is to get and keep their interest in fire services. Keller told LebTown that Sallada’s company is a sponsor of several of the youth competitions.

“If you don’t keep young people interested in the fire service, you’re not going to have a fire service,” Sallada said. “There won’t be people there. There’s hardly any people there now. So whatever you can do to adapt to keep the younger crowd, and when I say younger crowd, I mean the 30 and younger age group. You have to come up with unique ways, so that if you can continue to stuff like this at the fair that gets people involved, it tries to get young people interested. This is an event that is fun and allows you to be around like-minded individuals.”