"The fire service has a long history of having what we call musters," CFD Chief and President of the Georgia Firefighter's Association Scott Carter said. "They'll be doing competitive type firefighter events."
The competition will be held at the Clarence Brown Conference Center and is set to include three main events -- busted hose, bucket brigade and serpentine barrel roll -- along with a rapid dress contest. In rapid dress, competitors must "suit up" as quickly and correctly as possible and be ready to enter a burning building.
"It's all based on particular firefighter skills," Carter said. "There's one event that's called a busted hose drill. The firemen are placed on a line, water is activated and what they have to do is once the whistle blows, they have to shut the water supply down on that particular line, take out the busted hose, replace it with good hose, make all the connections, reactivate the water and get the nozzle flowing again."
Teams will consist of a minimum of five competitors and a maximum of seven. Coaches may be one of the seven participants and each even will be times and points awarded.
"It's a fun-filled day and during the lunch break we're going to have a children's muster," Carter said. "The kids will get to do fun, kid fire-related events. They may have to scoop a pail of water from a big tank and pour them into a swimming pool to knock an object out."
While an event has not been hosted in Cartersville since the mid-1990s, Carter said the state holds an annual competition at the state conference in August.
"This year, we felt like in the North West Georgia Chief's Association that this would be a good opportunity for us to get all the departments in northwest Georgia a little more active before the conference in Dalton," Carter said. "So we're going to run a series of mini-competitions across the state."
The first of the events will be hosted in Cartersville, followed by one in Dawsonville and one in Ringgold.
Money raised from the competitions is designated for a specific cause related to the fire service.
"The money that we raise off of this is for scholarship money through the North West Georgia Fire Chief's Association," Carter said. "It's where we can provide scholarships for firefighters to pursue higher education. That's the whole goal behind what's going on."
The Saturday event will have food and vendors present for the family friendly day. Teams must pre-register and rules and regulations may be found at www.nwgfca.org.
"We're really excited about it and hope everything pans out," Carter said. "We're looking forward to try to get as many teams as we possibly can and it'll be a great day."