South Hedland firies take B-grade

A team of volunteer firefighters from South Hedland were successful at this year's WA Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service State Championships.

About eight volunteers from South Hedland Volunteer Fire and Rescue team and family members travelled to Fremantle for the Easter competition.

After a close battle across a number of events that tested various skills, the team were crowned the B-grade champions.

Brigade captain Vaughan Price said the team had trained for about five months leading up to the event. He said after coming fifth overall in A-grade last year, the team were confident, but didn't expect to win the B-grade category this year.

"It came down to the last event … the points were all reasonably close, one team didn't make it through to the final and the second team we were competing against got a miss that knocked them out and put us in front," he said.

"Endurance is a big factor and the other one is technique - you don't get a chance to get things wrong, you only get one shot at it.

"We do a lot of training, we train three nights a week … the key to us, we have had a number of core members for a long time … with what we do it's something that you build skills over a number of years."

During the course of the weekend, Price said the team took part in about 15 events classed as traditional firefighting techniques, accumulating points along the way.

He said these were split into dry work events and wet work events.

"We compete in every event, but not all teams do," he said.

In individual or team events, runners compete against the clock, a competitor or another team, to lay out fire hoses in a format for dry work events.

In wet work events, runners are required to hit a disc after laying the hoses out.

Price said the championships were competitive, but the social side of things was probably the biggest part.