Photos by Lance Cpl. Lucas G. Lowe From left, Cpl. Michael Butler, Cpl. Bryan Fuoss, Lance Cpl. David Gray, Lance Cpl. Daniel Pata and Cpl. Joel Hurst, with Marine Corps Air Facility Quantico, get as much water on themselves as they get in thebuckets during the final event of the 23rd East Coast Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Rodeo onSaturday at MCAF. The five-gallon buckets were used to fill a 50-gallon barrel quickly, if not efficiently.

Marines from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., MCAS Cherry Point, N.C., MCAS New River, N.C., MCAF Quantico and Chemical Biological Immediate Reaction Force Indian Head, Md., competed against one another in seven events for the winner’s trophy, as well as for bragging rights.

New River took the lead in the beginning with a time of 30 seconds in the fireman’s carry relay and kept the pressure on with a time of 41:00 in the bunker gear race, where two-man teams sprinted 40 yards while getting dressed in full bunker suits. CBIRF trailed close behind with a time of 53.19.

CBIRF then asserted the lead in the barrel-cutting competition, where again two-man teams used high-powered saws to slice 50-gallon, metal barrels in half, edging past New River with a time of 14.31.

Three Marines from each team worked to assemble the jaws-of-life machine in the fastest time during the third event. New River regained the lead with a time of 33.75, only hundredths of a second away from Cherry Point’s time of 34.45.

The Quantico Marines made their presence known in the fourth event, a drill where 300 feet of fire hose was rolled out, connected and pumped full before Marines unleashed the water pressure to knock over three 50-gallon drums. Quantico came in second to CBIRF.

Another event had Marines stripping down a P-19 truck and scrambling against the clock to re-equip it. Cherry Point took the event with a time of 1:51.17.

The bucket brigade event was a wet, cold struggle to race from a tank of water with five-gallon buckets to fill a 50-gallon barrel and fill it up in the least time possible. New River won the event with a time of 2:05.

It was the Marines of New River who stole the glory that day. Coming in second was Cherry Point; third, Beaufort; fourth, CBIRF and Quantico in thefifth spot.

Gunnery Sgt. Robert E. Allen coached the New River Marines to success with only about four weeks of training prior to the event.

‘‘You pump them up and sell it,” Allen said. ‘‘When we’re stateside, not out there on the battlefield, this is a unique opportunity for the Marines to show their stuff in front of their peers.”

Saturday was Allen’s first time seeing the rodeo from a coach’s perspective. He has competed in the rodeo since 1996 and began coaching shortly afterward. He and his team trained six days a week, including non-working days, in preparation for the event.

Regardless of the results this weekend, every Marine who competed won in some way. This is the first ARFF rodeo in five years, when it was discontinued due to high number of Marines engaged in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

The younger Marines had not even gone to boot camp yet when the last rodeo took place.

‘‘The younger guys understand what it means for the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting community to be able to come together like this after five years of being at war,” said GunnerySgt. Dwayne Holt, the coach of Quantico’s team.

‘‘We didn’t finish in the spot we hoped to finish, but given the times we were getting in practice, we superseded all those today.”

— Correspondent: lucas.lowe@usmc.mil