The winners of the North West Regional Tactical Firefighting Challenge for 2026 have been announced after the incredible event took place at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service’s state of the art Training and Development Academy on Friday 10th July.
Firefighters from all of the North West Fire and Rescue Services, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service competed in a local competition testing operational excellence, innovation and leadership and enabling each service to learn from each other’s techniques and procedures, encouraging best practice across all of the services.
Teams of five firefighters from each service were faced with a scenario of a property fire, with each team given 30 minutes to extinguish the fire and rescue casualties before an audience of officers from all five fire and rescue services and representatives of organisations involved in providing services and equipment in the fire and rescue sphere who sponsored the event. Gold Sponsors included Angloco, Ballyclare, K Lamb Associates and Telent, Bronze Sponsors were Gerda Security Products Limited, PBI Performance Products, Ruth Lee/PAX (part of Protect Medical) and Sertus.
Throughout the challenge, teams were assessed by judges from all of the services on their operational knowledge, decision-making and application of procedures, including incident command, breathing apparatus operations, and fireground and entry control procedures.
The very hot weather on the day made the welfare of all of the firefighters involved all the more important, with special cooling areas set up to enable rapid cooling down after the arduous challenges faced.
All of the crews who took part demonstrated exceptional professionalism, teamwork and skills throughout the day and made great use of the opportunity to develop their skills in a realistic live-fire training environment.
After the judges’ deliberation the overall winners of the 2026 challenge were the team from Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service.
The full results were as follows:
NW RTFFC 2026 Team Winners - Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service
Crew members CM Christian Neen, CM Ryan Fitzwilliam, FF Pat Campbell-Jenner, FF Sean Fitzsimmons, CM Ryan Collins.
UKRO Trauma Challenge Winners: Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service Team, crew members CM Zach Burns, CM Giles Davies, FF Ceri Blythin , FF Becki Davies & FF Stephen Liddle
Best Incident Commander Award : WM Marc Howson (Greater Manchester Team) sponsored by Katherine Lamb Associates
Best Fire Ground Operative Award: FF Tom Molyneux (Merseyside Team) sponsored by Angloco
Best Breathing Apparatus Entry Control Operative Award: CM Giles Davies (Cheshire Team) sponsored by Telent Services
Best Breathing Apparatus Team Award: FF Stuart Fallows and FF Gary Maybank (Greater Manchester) sponsored by Ballyclare
MFRS Station Manager Kirsty Hornby, one of the co-ordinators of the event said:
‘The commitment of the firefighters involved was incredible as they faced a very realistic and dynamic scenario in a live fire environment in extremely hot weather conditions. It was a fantastic learning opportunity for everyone who took part and each service will have taken something positive away from the event which will contribute to each service’s constant improvement by the sharing of best practice.
I would like to thank all of the North West Fire and Rescue Services and our sponsors for being involved in this event which will promote operational excellence, professionalism and strengthen regional interoperability and collaborative learning between services. My gratitude also goes to the team of officers and support staff from MFRS who all worked hard to plan and deliver the event. Congratulations to all of the winners and all of those who took part in the challenge with such commitment and professionalism.’