The Firefighter Challenge BY: Brenna Collins
article originally appeared on Playeasy In 1991, Dr. Paul Davis began the Firefighter Challenge – a high intensity competition for firefighters to promote health and wellness and bring awareness to the profession. This year, the Firefighter Challenge is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and today the non-profit organization hosts events across the globe for an array of first responder heroes. We were grateful to sit down with Melissa Shelton at the Firefighter Challenge who shared everything about its mission and the inspiration it spreads across the globe.
History
“It all came out of research. What does a firefighter go through and how can we prevent some of these injuries,” says Shelton. In 1975, Dr. Paul Davis received a U.S. Fire Administration grant to the University of Maryland to study the physical impacts on firefighters’ bodies. Dr. Davis started building sets to conduct research on the 5 essential functions of firefighting, putting firefighters through these sets to see how their bodies reacted. During this research, Dr. Davis realized that firefighters love to compete against each other. “Eventually these studies became one big course for the firefighters to compete and it became the Firefighter Challenge,” Shelton shares. Today, the competitions have amplified to a larger scale, featuring two semi-trucks holding props and a large tower to form one massive course. “We have competitors come from the local markets, as well as veterans, and they compete against each other for time,” Shelton shares. At the start of 2022, Dr. Paul Davis announced his retirement from the Challenge to return to his focus on education and research. He has left the Firefighter Challenge in the hands of Russell Jackson as CEO. The Firefighter Challenge has been restructured from LLC to 501(c)3, and great things are on the horizon for the organization, like new events to benefit local charities.
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50% of all firefighter deaths are cardiac related. “It’s crazy because it’s preventable.
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