Volunteer firefighters put their skills to the test in Newcastle

NLJ Staff
 
The Wyoming State Firemen’s Convention came to an end on Saturday with the Newcastle Volunteer Fire Department a clear winner. Second place went to Riverton, while third place belonged to Afton City. The weather was breezy and quite a bit cooler, bringing relief to the firemen, their families and the audience. Teams competed in five different events beginning on Thursday with the replacement and WYE contests. 
After the first day of competition, the Afton Volunteer Fire Department held a razor-thin 0.06 second lead over Riverton Volunteer Fire Department in the overall standings, and the host team from Newcastle was sitting in third place, less than a second behind the leaders.
The drill competition started with the replacement contest, which requires teams to replace a faulty hose with a new one in the middle of the run. Afton was the only team to complete the event in less than a half-minute. The Lincoln County team, captained by Brock Brown, clocked a 20.86 second run to claim the event. Logan Wilkes was the plug man, Glenn Magee served as the breaker, Taylor Roberts was the clamp man, and Brian Erickson was the nozzle man on the squad.
Riverton took second in the event with a time of 31.75 seconds, good enough to beat Newcastle by the thinnest of margins as the host team hit the target in 31.76 seconds.
Riverton took the top spot in the WYE contest, where teams split two hoses at one of the breakers to form a “Y.” The Fremont County team, captained by Buddy Armstrong, posted the fastest time of 22.53 seconds, with Matt Lee working as the plug man, Cory Lucan as the breaker, Mike Hutcheson as the clamp man and Tyler Goff serving as the first nozzle man.
The Newcastle squad, captained by Donny Munger, clocked a 23.76 to take second place. Seth Norrise, Ian D’Ambrogi, Robert Munger and David Scott rounded out the team that edged out third-place Afton, which finished in 24.36 seconds.
After day one, the overall team standings had Afton in first with a combined 54.22 seconds, followed by Riverton (54.28) and Newcastle (55.15).
Newcastle was able to use a first-place finish in the double male/double female contest at the drill competition on Friday to surge ahead of Afton and Riverton in the overall standings, with a day of competition remaining.
Robert Munger said that the event is named that, not because any women are involved. The name is because of what takes place in the second hose. Once the traditional run is done, where the target gets hit by the hose man, the fire truck then takes a trip back to the hose. During this time, a second line of hoses is taken off the trucks for a second nozzle man to hit the other target. However, this creates a situation where the hoses are strung out in reverse from the first line. So the team has to use a double-male brass connector at the nozzle, and a double-female brass connector at the plug, hence the name.
The Newcastle team captained by Donny Munger clocked a time of 38.86 seconds in the only event held on Friday at the Newcastle Fire Hall. Team members Layne Zerbst, David Scott, Robert Munger and Ian D’Ambrogi helped their captain set a pace that bested the Afton City team, captained by Brock Brown, by nearly a full second. The Lincoln County squad of Logan Wilkes, Glenn Magee, Brian Erickson and Taylor Roberts completed the event in 39.84 seconds.
That was good enough to best the Afton Rural team (Cody Wilkes, Monte Hess, Andy Sessions, Kade Hebdon and Rob Holland) by two full seconds after the rural contingent clocked a 41.94 to round out the top three.
Riverton was fourth in the event, followed by Torrington, Wheatland, Lander and Lingle.
While they changed positions from their final spots on day one, the top-three teams in the overall standings remained the same after day two, and all three had a shot at claiming the title following the final two events on Saturday.
The host team from Newcastle went into the final day with a razor-thin lead over Afton City. Newcastle’s cumulative time after the three events was 94.01 seconds, and Afton City was right on their tails with a time of 94.03. Although they had some work to do on Saturday, Riverton was within range of the leaders and sitting in third place with a time of 96.70 seconds.
Kicking off the last day of competition was the cellar contest, in which teams drive up to a board that is nailed into a frame in the ground, chop a hole big enough for the brass end of a hose, stuff the hose into the hole and start pumping water.  There is a three-second penalty if water hits the board before the hose is in place. The board is a 2-foot-by-2-foot, 5/8-inch thick AC Plywood, and there are two layers of it to chop through.
Newcastle completed the race in 15.34 seconds to edge out second-place Torrington (15.44) and third-place Riverton (16.88).
After that, the final event of the convention took place. The WET Test had the teams driving up to the ladder on the side of the fire department tower. The nozzle man climbed the ladder with the hose slung over his shoulder. He was followed by the anchor who made sure the hose was anchored on one of the rungs of the ladder, so that the weight from the vertical column of all that water inside of the hose was manageable for the nozzle man. The nozzle man then has to aim at a target as the water pumps through. The fastest team to hit the target wins.
Newcastle clocked a 14.85 to win the final event by a full two seconds over second-place Afton City (16.69) and third-place Lander (18.03), and that was more than enough to seal the deal for the host team. Newcastle’s cumulative time was 124.20 seconds, which was a full eight seconds faster than the second-place team from Riverton (132.20). The top three remained the same all three days, and Afton City held onto the third spot in the final standings with a total time of 137.23 seconds. Lander was fourth, followed by Afton Rural, Wheatland, Torrington and Lingle.