IRON RIVER.—With less than a month left until the U.P.’s top firefighters gather in Florence, Wis., for the 115th annual U.P. Volunteer Firefighters Tournament (July 23 to 25), Iron County’s fire departments went head to head June 27 outside the West Iron County Fire Hall.

At stake were county bragging rights, a little money, a small, shiny keg and some positive momentum going into the U.P. tourney. The competition was friendly, but that didn’t take away any of the intensity or desire of each department to be top dog.

Results were mixed. Only three of the five county departments took part in the races. (Alpha-Mastodon only had two people at the county fire chiefs meeting that preceded the races, and Amasa was not represented.)

That left competition to three competitive teams: West Iron County, which won the U.P. title last year; Caspian-Gaastra, which tied for third place; and Crystal Falls, with a long history of U.P. tourney success.

So who won? It’s complicated. Besides hosting the event, West Iron County ran in the races and had the best time in three of them, earning a total of 38 points—better than any other department.

But as the host, WIC was ineligible to win the team title. That honor goes to Caspian-Gaastra, which finished with 30 points. Crystal Falls ended up with 26.

Although it did not win any races, Caspian-Gaastra was well positioned to win first place outright after three races: They had 22 points to Crystal Falls’ 20 and West Iron’s 18. Both West Iron and Crystal Falls already had one disqualification, and a team gets no points for a DQ. Caspian-Gaastra had three clean runs.

Race four was the hose interchange race. In it, each team has to connect lengths of hose, one end to the nozzle and one to the hydrant. After knocking down one target with a stream of water, the team has to clamp off the hose, disconnect the last length, connect a different length of hose lying parallel to it, transfer the nozzle to that hose and hit a second target.

Crystal Falls had a good time but was disqualified—one hose connection didn’t have the required three complete turns. West Iron was next and posted a speedy time of 45.85 seconds. Caspian-Gaastra got its turn.

Everything went OK with the first connection and target, the hose was clamped and the second length and nozzle were attached. It looked like a good time. But when the hose was unclamped and the powerful stream of water suddenly surged down, the two men at the nozzle lost their grip.

The hose started thrashing around before it was reclamped, and Caspian-Gaastra was disqualified. Instead of getting 10 points (first place) or eight points (second place), C-G got a big, fat goose-egg.

That wasn’t the big worry, though. When the hose got away, it banged firefighter Ted Weeks on the chin and lower lip, and he needed a few minutes to collect his wits. He was able to walk away, though, and later was awarded the Gerry Odlund Trophy—a small keg mounted on a wooden frame—honoring the most creative way to get disqualified in a race.

In all, there were four DQs. West Iron County was disqualified during the hose relay, when a fireman running with a length of hose had it come unspooled, and the connection dragged on the pavement. Crystal Falls was disqualified twice, both times for loose couplings.

On the other hand, nobody was DQ’d for problems with their uniform, such as not having a helmet on or not having three fasteners attached on their jacket before leaving the starting box.

All three departments have a lot of experience in firefighters’ tourneys and work hard at it. There were no dumb mistakes or mind cramps.

The first event was the five-man ladder race. The three times were less than a second apart—Crystal Falls (21.15) edged West Iron (21.19) for first place..

Crystal Falls went two for two in the four-man hose relay, completing the task in 51.93. With West Iron DQ’d, Caspian-Gaastra was second in 57.78.

West Iron zipped through the five-man coupling race in 22.72 seconds, with Caspian-Gaastra second (29.12) and Crystal Falls disqualified. In the five-man interchange race, West Iron’s 45.85 took first place by default—the other two departments were disqualified.

The fifth race was the mystery race—not announced in advance. This time the task was pretty simple: Three firefighters had to dress—no helmets this time—roll up three lengths of hose and then carry them to a circle, putting one on top of the other.

West Iron led off with a time of 40 seconds flat, Caspian-Gaastra was a very close second (40.66), and Crystal Falls was third (42.12).

The first four races—the ladder race, the hose relay, the coupling race and the interchange race—will be run during the U.P. Tourney in Florence on Race Day (July 24). Florence will have its own Mystery Race, which will be kept a closely-kept secret until after the fourth race is over.

Race results have the biggest influence on the overall championship at the U.P. tourney, but teams also earn points during three parades—the dress parade, shirttail parade and commercial parade. Each department is working on floats based on this year’s theme: “Firefighters Are Heating U.P. South of the Border.”

“Our guys have been practicing since middle to late May,” said Al Perlongo, West Iron County fire chief and acting race captain. “So they are coming along.” The team has been practicing each Tuesday and Thursday at the fire hall—despite problems with racers being out of town.

Last Saturday, Perlongo said, several racers were unavailable due to work and a hamstring injury. “So we ran some of our younger kids, and they did real well. I’m really happy with them.

“We take it serious; the guys take it serious. They’re doing real well.”

Rick Lindberg, Caspian-Gaastra race captain, was also upbeat about how his team performed—three seconds and a third.

“We have the same crew doing it as we did at U.P.’s last year,” he said. The team has added Irene Anderson, who took part in several county races.

Like West Iron, Caspian-Gaastra’s race team has been practicing twice a week. On the week before the tournament, said Lindberg, “We’ll be doing it every day.” They started several weeks ago.

A different committee is working on the float, so the race team can focus on the races. And, Lindberg said, the team looks forward to going to Florence. “We look forward to having a good time there.”