The eight edition of South Africa’s ‘Toughest Firefighter Alive’ (TFA-SA) Open competition will be held at De Bakke beach in Mossel Bay on 5 to 7 October 2023. The TFA-SA is based on the international Toughest Firefighter Alive’ Challenge, the blue riband event of the World Firefighter Games (WFG). The WFG started in Auckland, New Zealand 1990 and is held in a different country every two years with the winner of the TFA Competition at the WFG being crowned the World’s Toughest Firefighter Alive, a very prestigious award. Register now!
The TFA-SA South Africa’s premier fire fighter event was held for the first in Cape Town at the Good Hope Centre on October 2011 with a total of approximately 80 competitors. The event has been primarily hosted in Cape Town, then in George in 2016 and with Mossel Bay hosting the event in 2022.
The seventh Edition of the event held in Mossel Bay 2022 attracted a record amount of 170 participants, 29 relay teams from 22 different municipalities and entities.
On the international stage the South African TFA fire fighters have competed and represented South Africa with pride and excellence. South Africa’s best performing TFA fire fighters have competed in Mönchengladbach, Germany; at Interschutz, Hanover in Germany, in Lisbon, Portugal and Saudi Arabia with outstanding success.
In 2017 Faith Mbanjwa of eThekwini Fire and Rescue Service won the international female Toughest Firefighter Alive award in Germany. The same year, the men’s relay team placed fifth out of 30 teams. Last year, three South African competitors Emile Conrad from Garden Route and Alno Kroon and Baigum Abrahams, both from Cape Town, also achieved international success in Saudi Arabia, winning the relay and both male and female individual PPE challenge.
This year, the TFA-SA 2023 will be endeavouring to build on the successful foundation of last year’s competition in Mossel Bay.
The competition will be more intense with teams becoming more competent with the best competing against the best, placing the top 20 to 30 individuals and the best relay teams against each other in order to encourage top performance. This year’s competition also holds special significance because the top performing fire fighters will be chosen to represent South Africa at the next World Toughest Firefighter Alive championship to be held at the WFG in Denmark 2024.
Individuals and corporates are encouraged to support this event aimed at enhancing service delivery through fitter, stronger fire fighters, build community relations, motivate fire fighters and restore local and national pride in the fire services.