Macon County volunteer firefighters shoot for state title three-peat

MONTEZUMA -- For the past two years, a few Macon County country boys have bested large fire departments in the state firefighter competition.

They hope to do it again Friday.

The Macon County Volunteer Fire Department is getting ready to try for its third consecutive state title. Just eight departments competed last year, but one of them was the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department.

That particularly stung for Macon-Bibb because the competition was held in Macon. Also, Macon-Bibb has won the title before and has been one of the most regular participants in the competition. Macon-Bibb firefighters have said they are making a special effort this year to try to take the title back.

The competition is held as part of the annual convention of the Georgia State Firefighters Association and the Georgia Association of Fire Chiefs. This year the convention will be held on Jekyll Island, and the competition will take place Friday evening.

Eddie White, the competition chairman, said volunteer fire departments have won it before, but in recent years it has gone mostly to “career” departments until Macon County came along. He couldn’t remember another volunteer department winning the title two years in a row.

“They are very disciplined, and they’ve obviously had tremendous amounts of training and practice,” White said.

He wasn’t sure why more departments don’t compete, but part of it could be tight budgets and the associated travel expense. The Macon County volunteers pay their own way.

But another reason could be that it takes a good bit of time to practice, and it can be physically tough, as the Macon County volunteers showed Thursday when they practiced the “busted hose” event.

In that scenario, a section of a long hose has holes in it and is spraying water. A team of six firefighters has to run from the end of the hose to the fire truck, get a new section of hose, clamp off the bad section, replace it and then knock over two orange cones with the spray.

In the second run, the hole had gotten much bigger than it was supposed to be, and the water blasted Gabriel Whitt so hard in the chest that it knocked him over. He said at the end of the practice that it was still stinging.

Macon County Fire Chief Marvin Yoder credited the team’s success to its dedication to practice and getting better, despite the physical demands.

“They are sincere about really putting their heart into it and winning it,” Yoder said. “It’s amazing to come together, not being full-time firemen, and to be able to compete with firemen who train throughout the year to win this competition.”

Even Yoder, a dairy farmer, is a volunteer. The only pay they get is $15 per call to cover expenses. The department has only about one structure fire a month. Most of their calls are related to medical emergencies.

They had never competed until they entered and won two years ago, so they are actually undefeated.

They will compete in four events, and they know what three of those are. A fourth is a mystery that will be revealed at the time of the competition.

One team member, Kurtis Yoder, also won an individual championship last year in the quick-dress event. That tests how quickly a firefighter can get into full gear. The average throughout the department is about 50 seconds. Macon County firefighters thought for a while that 33 seconds was about as fast as it could be done.

Kurtis Yoder did it in 26.66 seconds in the competition. That extra motivation to push for more, he said, is why competing in the event is important.

“It’s made all of us better firefighters,” he said.

Other members of the team are Chad Yoder, Sam Ansley, Tony Weaver and Ronnie Yoder. Micah Kauffman is the team’s coach.

To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.

This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Macon County volunteer firefighters shoot for state title three-peat ."