Las Vegas Sun

November 24, 2009

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Local firefighters complete in Combat Challenge

Monday, Nov. 6, 2000 | 10:43 a.m.

Four members of the Las Vegas Fire Department made it to the finals in the men's division of the Firefighter Combat Challenge that concluded Saturday.

Mike Benneman finished 63rd, Darrell Aronson was 70th, Xavier Flores was 77th and Jeff Rogers was 108th.

Just under 1,000 firefighters participated in the four-day event.

Firefighters from five Canadian provinces and 30 states wore full gear and took on an obstacle course that included climbing a five-story tower, dealing with hoses and rescuing a 175-pound doll.

Top male firefighter was Kevin Schulze of Surrey, Canada, and top female was Martha Ellis of Salt Lake City.

The Ottawa Fire Department won the team competition with a new world record time with the Surrey Fire Services team coming in second and the Missoula, Mont., Fire Department finishing third.

The Las Vegas team finished 19th out of 20 teams.

The goal of the competition is to encourage firefighter fitness and demonstrate to the public how the job is done. In addition to the combat challenge, there was a mini children's version called the Kid's Crawl, Drag and Squirt. The focus of the competition for youngsters was physical fitness and to give them a taste of the job.

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