Cape Town ‘hot shot’ firefighters by numbers
As high temperatures and strong winds become prevalent in the Mother City during summer, Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service has put hundreds of hopefuls through their paces to fill 120 seasonal firefighter positions.
During the previous summer season, firefighters attended to more than 5 000 structural and vegetation fires.
While everyone knows firefighting is a super demanding job, we found the following numbers rather fascinating. Take a look:
900 – the number of professional firefighters who can be called upon for major incidents in the city
30 – number of fire stations across the city
400 – hopefuls who applied to join the ‘hot shot’ crews, as Cape Town’s volunteer firefighters are known
10 – the grade certificate required to apply as a volunteer firefighter. You also need police clearance and have to complete numeracy and literacy tests.
11 – the number of minutes you have to run 2.4km during the physical trial.
20 – kilogram drums you need to carry for a distance of 100 metres… two of them… at the same time!
30 – the number of push-ups and sit-ups you need to do in less than a minute each.
Sounds pretty tough, right?!
Source: Traveller24