Travis Airmen place first in national firefighting competition

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jeremy Larlee
  • Air Force Print News
ATLANTA (AFPN) --  A team of firefighters from Travis Air Force Base Calif., finished first in the individual heats portion of the 2006 U.S. National Firefighter Combat Challenge held here Oct. 13 and 14.

In the individual heat team competition the best three team member times were totaled for the team time. The Travis Team also finished third in the relay competition.

The team from Travis is no stranger to winning the grueling physical event, as they also won the national title last year and were crowned the world champions the past two years.

Team Captain Mike Melton, who also had the second fastest time in the event at 1:32, said the secret to his team's success is that no single person is held higher than the team.

"Our team dynamic is one of unity and working together to get to our goal," he said. "Regardless of performance level, no individual is better than the team as a whole."

The course was littered with daunting physical challenges including a six-story climb and descent of a tower, hoisting a 45-pound weight six stories, using numerous hammer impacts to move a 160-pound weight, dragging a hose 120 feet to douse a target and the home stretch; carrying a 175-pound dummy backwards the final 120 feet. If this isn't difficult enough, the competitors do all of this while wearing more than 40 pounds of equipment and a helmet.


Even though he had a good completion time on the course, Sergeant Melton said he felt under the weather entering the competition and he pushed on because he knew his team needed him.

"It was a tough course," he said. "It was an honor to win with the great competition we faced. We really fought through everything to come out on top as a team."

Team Travis was not the only Defense Department team to have a good showing.

The Relay event, which had team members completing one portion of the course and then handing off a baton to their next team member, was won by the SAM Squad from Goodfellow AFB., Texas. The squad, named "SAM" for "soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines," is a multi-service team and is only two years old.

The teams will next compete in the worldwide competition held at Las Vegas Nov. 7-11.