November 2017 | David Claridge

AS FIRE brigades train for what is predicted to be a busy bushfire season, a local volunteer had some extra training to do to compete against firefighters from all over Australia.

Elizabeth Town Volunteer Firefighter and Brigade Chief, Richard Bennett, was nominated by his brigade to compete in the Firefighter Stair Climb in Melbourne in September.

“We don’t do a lot of stair climbing in Elizabeth Town, but my brigade nominated me so I took it up as a challenge,” he said.

The annual event involves raising money to fight depression, PTSD and suicide before tackling a gruelling 28 floor stair climb with 25kg’s of gear in Melbourne.

“I had to get fairly fit for it, so I did a lot of training at the gym in Deloraine, also running up a lot of stairs with a backpack on at Leven Canyon. There are 700 steps there and I also visited the zig zag track at the Gorge.

“It was amazing support that we got from a lot of the local brigades and businesses.”

Richard was one of 13 from Tasmania who went over, as well as 45 from New Zealand, some from the United States as well as mainland firefighters to make around 650 entrants.

For a first go, Richard finished 56th with a time of five minutes and two seconds.

However, he finished 4th in fundraising, making almost $7,000, to go towards Lifeline and the Black Dog Institute. For his fundraising efforts he received a trophy.

“I would like to try it again. I would like to get a team together from Deloraine and Elizabeth Town next year.”

“Doing this I’ve discovered that there are firefighter stair climbs all over the world, so who knows where we might end up at the next one.”

At the time of publishing, the Firefighters 2017 Charity fund was just short of its target of $500,000.