| 
| 
WATER APPLICATION DRILL – FOUR FIREFIGHTER TEAM
TIME: At start and stop of the referee’s whistle.
OBJECT: To drive the ball over the opponents head.
RULES: All movement of the ball must be accomplished by force of hose streams. Starting position of each team shall be with the nozzle tip to the back of the goal line, nozzle closed and line charged laying flat on the ground. The ball is placed on the mark in the center of cable. All participants shall provide their own and work the evolution in protective clothing (firefighter boots, coat and helmet) with gloves optional and shall stand erect with their hands above their heads when they are ready, and remain in that position until the starter’s signal. Drill shall start with the starter’s signal and stop at the sound of the judge’s or timer’s signal.
Winning teams shall be determined by elimination. A time limit of three minutes shall be placed on each water application drill. Timers shall signal when time is up to stop the drill. Judges shall determine the position of the water ball in relation to the center mark on the cable and the losing team shall be the ones on whose side the ball was at the time the drill is stopped. Whenever water is flowing through the hoses, a person designated by the host shall be within arms reach of the safety valve so that if and when an emergency would occur that person could shut off the flow of water. The first team to shut off their nozzle will automatic forfeit the drill and the other team declared the winner.
PENALTIES: Deliberately or intentionally turning stream on opponents or the loss of any fire fighting gear, or any member of the team falling down, will disqualify the offending team.
PRIZES: Trophies, 1st place – 4 points, 2nd – 3 points, 3rd place – 2 points, 4th – 1 point.
PRESSURE: A pressure gauge will be connected at the Y, and with the nozzles open a pressure of 75 pounds will be maintained as accurately as possible at the Y, but in no case shall in vary more than 3 pounds in either direction. If in the opinion of the judges, pressure should be changed due to local problems, it may be done by a majority vote of the judges present.
EQUIPMENT: One steel ball suspended from a cable 15 feet from the ground, two lines of 2 ½ inch hose, with the same size nozzle and nozzle pressure. Official target shall be 16 gallon beer barrel. Target should have a solid center shaft with swiveling 3-pulley carrier. A safety valve shall be installed in the 2 ½ inch hose line between the Y and the pumper.
The Association matched nozzles used in water application drills are: Akron style N.427 play pipe, 2 ½ inch N.S.T. base; style No. 1125 shutoff; style No.438, ¾ inch tips. NOTE: This is subject to change as to local conditions and other equipment to be used by program committee.
Most departments use an 1-1/2” or 1-3/4” hose & straight tip plastic or brass nozzles. Time Limits vary from 2 to 3 minutes. Most are single elimination, however double elimination is also used when small number of teams are present or a choice of the hosting department. In “double elimination” contests your losing team drops into a second bracket where they battle to the end, the finalist on the looser bracket then normally gets a chance to challenge the finalist from the winners bracket....
If the finalist in the winners bracket already was the team to beat, the looser bracket winner and “True Second” would fight to determine a true, second or third place finish. The winning finalist from both brackets can also fight for a true first (double elimination) winner. The looser bracket finalist would have to fight the unbeaten winner TWICE to show they have been defeated twice.