Fast pace set in challenge
Southland’s fastest firefighter in this year’s Sky Tower Stair Challenge is John-Kurt Burnett, of Mossburn, who whipped up 51 flights of stairs in 12min41sec.
Burnett beat his time from the challenge last year by only three seconds.
An impressive effort, but the top firefighter was John Harrison, of Auckland, who was first with a blistering time of 8min11sec at the weekend.
A total of 36 firefighters from Southland climbed the Sky Tower on Saturday as part of the fundraising challenge for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand.
Coming 37th out of 619 firefighters, Burnett credited his improvement on having previous experience.
Along with firefighter Olivia Ross from Mossburn, they managed to raise about $2500.
In a first for the Balfour volunteer fire brigade, firefighter James Merchant finally took part in the challenge after he failed to secure a spot in the competition last year.
There were limited entries for the competition that attracted hundreds of firefighters from New Zealand and abroad.
Merchant understood that brigades that had entered in the challenge previously were given priority for entry each year, he said.
‘‘They really look for good fundraisers for the cause.’’
Now that he had represented the brigade in the challenge it would be a bit easier for them to get in next year, Merchant said.
Merchant said his time of 21 minutes and 49 seconds was not as good as would have liked.
‘‘I had quite a bit of oxygen left when I got up there.’’
Merchant, who had been a firefighter for 16 years raised about $1500 for the charity.
He became a volunteer firefighter soon after he moved to New Zealand from the United Kingdom.
The biggest contingent from Southland came from the Ohai and Nightcaps brigades with nine firefighters heading up to Auckland for the challenge.
The brigades from Balfour, Bluff, Gore, Mossburn, Ohai Nightcaps, Riverton, Te Anau, Tuatapere, Waikaia, Wallacetown and Winton were represented at the event.
The top firefighters from Southland were John-Kurt Burnett (Mossburn) 12min41sec, Stuart Hill (Winton) 12min53sec, Scott Mckee (Waikaia) 13min05sec, Nigel Baldock (Waikaia) 13min15sec and Andrew Mackie (Tuatapere) 14min37sec.
For the full list of results go to https://firefightersclimb.org.nz