Firefighting Part 3: The Relationship of Size, Strength & Fitness to Firefighting

By Mike Berry, President/Owner of Power-Up USA, Inc. (MFD-Ret), T. Matic, CSCS (MFD-Bn. Chief-Ret.)

Introduction —
Twenty-two Firefighters were timed on the Roof Ladder Evolution, the entry level Milwaukee Physical Ability Test and, the nationally known Combat Test®. Those performances, plus the total combined time to complete those tasks, are used in the analysis presented below.

1. Roof Ladder
Average time for this single task was 50.59 seconds (:50.59). The combined Size, Strength and Fitness Scores had a significant and high correlation of .7840. The relative contribution of Size (13.3%) was non-significant. Strength (56.2%) and Fitness (30.5%) made significant relative contributions for a total of 86.7%.


2. Physical Ability Test
Average time for this series of five tasks (hose drag, chopping, pike pole work, ladder lift and victim rescue) was 2 minutes and 37.82 seconds (2:37.82). The combined Size, Strength and Fitness Scores had a significant and high correlation of .8172. The relative contribution of Size (14.4%) was non-significant. Strength (45.9%) and Fitness (39.7%) made significant relative contributions for a total of 85.6%.

3. The Combat Test®
The average time for this series of five tasks ( stair climb with hose pack, hoist evolution, forcible entry, hose advance and victim rescue) was 4 minutes and 18.23 seconds (4:18.23). The combined Size, Strength and Fitness Scores had a significant and high correlation of .8775. The relative contribution of Size (28.6%) was non-significant. Strength (40.8%) and Fitness (30.6%) made significant relative contributions for a total of 71.4%.

Total Time Analysis for Tasks 1-3 —
The combined average total time for the Roof Ladder Evolution, Physical Ability Test and the Combat Test® was 7 minutes and 46.64 seconds (7:46.64). The combined Size, Strength and Fitness Scores had a significant and high correlation of .8841. The relative contribution of Size (23.9%) was non-significant. Strength (43.3%) and Fitness (32.7%) made significant relative contributions for a total of 76.0%.

Summary —
The statistically significant and high correlations indicate that in this group of Firefighter Recruits, those who possessed higher levels of Strength and Fitness, performed fire fighting tasks faster than those with less Strength and Fitness. These findings agree with previous published and unpublished research, that also showed the important relationship between Strength & Fitness and effective fire fighting performance.

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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.