A three-day challenge put 14 Wing Greenwood’s Fire Emergency Services firefighters through their paces in February, as three shift crews tested themselves against the 2026 edition of the Tactical Firefighter Games.
“No, no, there’s no in-house wager,” said Corporal Wyatt Magarvey from the sidelines of the Fitness and Sports Centre gym floor, nursing an ankle injury following regional military hockey play and watching as members of his Gold Crew took on the games’ challenges.
“It’d be more so bragging rights, after. If the test became our standard, it could definitely bring on some ‘friendly’ wagers.”
The games were first held on a small scale in March 2025, organized by Personnel Support Program for select National Defence Fire Service firefighters across the country. This year, the games have expanded, with double the number of base fire halls and many more firefighters participating in a national roll-out. In Greenwood, almost three dozen available firefighters from 14 FES’ three shift crews challenged the games.
“The specs of this cover all the basics of firefighting skills,” Magarvey said. “The tire and the sledgehammer – forcible entry. The sandbag – picking up hose. Not running between tasks – that’s what we do on the fire ground.
“We have a saying: ‘slow is smooth, smooth is fast.’’”
Testing that slow, smooth, non-rushed tempo is the Tactical Firefighter Games’ very first challenge: 30 seconds to memorize the details of a picture of a fire scene. Sandbags, carries, tire slams, drags, box steps, carabiner attachments – all wearing a 20-pound weighted vest and work gloves; and then, correctly answer questions about that fire scene picture’s details. Each wrong answer adds a five-second penalty to the entire challenge’s timing.
14 Wing PSP fitness coordinator Tommy Daniels said the PSP team set the complex challenge course up in advance to be sure they’d match the games’ standard, and then set it up and tore it down for each of the three day’s 14 FES crews coming through.
“The firefighters seemed to really enjoy it,” Daniels said. “They have the military Force test, but this is just a fitness challenge – everyone was caught off guard by how difficult it was. The sandbag drag is 20 metres, like the Force test – but then they had to turn around, re-hook the drag with their gloves on – shaking, to drag it back. That was a real struggle – but it could be real conditions at a fire.”
PSP centres across the country will submit their participants’ stats and timings for national compilation, looking for top performers and fire hall versus fire hall Tactical Firefighter Games’ rankings.
