Firefighters win 10th competition
Hours of training have paid off for a team of Mossburn firefighters who’ve set a record after winning their 10th Otago Southland provincial championship.
Mossburn Fire Brigade’s Stephen Trusler and Jeff Manson reckon their experience is the key ingredient to their success.
The pair took home first place in the two-person division at this year’s United Fire Brigade Association South Island Waterways’ Championship held in Mataura last month.
Trusler’s son, Ollie, and coach, Robin South, also took part in the competition as support members, along with seven other two-man teams and five four-person teams from Canterbury, the West Coast, Otago and Southland. ‘‘Our training season was massive so it was a great result,’’ Manson said.
South travelled from Gore for weekly training sessions while
Trusler and Manson managed to fit in another three training sessions a week.
They also took part in their usual weekly brigade training and spent a fair amount of time analysing videos to spot room for improvement. ‘‘We have developed a very good understanding of the rules and we still have to help the officials out with that occasionally,’’ Mason said.
Psychologically, the pair said they don’t compete with any other team.
They compete against themselves and their time, doing a quick analysis after each run, before moving on to concentrate on the next.
For the waterways competitions, firefighters must pump water from a dam, through a fire engine, or through an appliance with its own water supply. They also need to demonstrate other firefighting techniques.
It’s been a busy and successful season for Trusler and Mason.
‘‘We started in November going through to February, winning all the Otago and Southland challenges, followed by the Otago Southland provincial championships in Ranfurly,’’ Mason said.