How tall is the tallest building in Washington state? Ask your local firefighters, who on March 8 climbed 788 feet up Seattle’s Columbia Center under more than 50 pounds of gear in support of Blood Cancer United, formerly the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
In a grueling test of endurance and drive, 17 members of the Park City Fire District ascended 69 floors of the skyscraper alongside nearly 2,000 firefighters from around the world at the 35th annual Seattle Firefighter Stairclimb.
Participants conquered the 1,356 steps in full turnout gear — the heavy protective equipment firefighters wear on calls, including boots, insulated pants and jacket, helmet and an air tank — totaling anywhere from 50 to 70 pounds of added weight.
For these firefighters, the climb is both a marathon and a sprint, with the top finishers racing up the thousands of steps to reach the top in just 13 minutes.
The narrow stairwell allowed little room to pass, said Ashley Lewis, the Fire District’s assistant chief. Climbers would tap each other on their shoulders to move around one another, offering muffled words of encouragement between heavy breaths.
“You just go in and don’t stop,” Lewis said. “You get into a mindset of not stopping, and just keep going.”
From the seventh floor on, photos of those lost to blood cancer line the stairwell walls, reminding climbers why they are there.
“You need that when it starts to get hard,” said Lewis. “You need the pictures on the wall, the firefighters around you, the volunteers. All of it keeps you going.”
By the middle floors, as heat and humidity rose through the stairwell, sweat pooled under helmets and soaked through layers of gear. But packed in with a global community of firefighters pushing alongside one another, the only way through was up.
Managing air supply is part of the strategy. Firefighters carry a self-contained breathing apparatus on their backs for the entire climb, but the tank won’t last all 69 floors if used continuously.
Racing against the clock, participants don’t have the time or resources to switch tanks mid-climb, so they carry it from the bottom and save the air for the upper floors, waiting to use their oxygen in the climb’s final and most difficult stretch.
“You only have about 40 floors worth of air,” said Porter Royce, who participated for the first time this year. “So you wait, and when it really starts to hit, you start using the air.”
Royce rationed his air until about the 30th floor, holding off until the climb became more physically demanding and the air inside the stairwell grew heavier.
“Around floor 30 and 40, you start to see people stopping, taking their gear off, stepping off to the side to recover,” Royce said. “That’s when it gets hard, and you realize you’re still only halfway there, wondering when it’ll be your turn to need a break.”
The Fire District placed third overall out of 259 fire departments in the timed ascent and came first in the chief division, raising $20,551 in support of Blood Cancer United and adding to the more than $2.45 million raised this year for blood cancer research and patient support.
“You have all these people that have come from literally all over the world,” Fire Chief Peter Emery said. “It’s the entire fire service coming together for a great cause.”
The cause carries particular weight within the profession. Firefighters face a higher risk of cancer due to repeated exposure to smoke, chemicals and heat over the course of their careers.
“Firefighters are at a dramatically increased risk of blood cancer,” said Rob Takeno, a captain with the Fire District. “We all know family members or coworkers who are impacted.”
For Takeno, who has completed the climb five times, it is about supporting the cause and bringing the department together. He has played a central role in organizing the trip, helping coordinate logistics, lodging and fundraising, and was among the firefighters who sustained the department’s involvement during years when only a small number made the climb.
“He is the heart of this,” said Lewis.
Takeno said the event serves as a way to bring the department together outside of daily operations. Traveling to Seattle as a group, training for a shared goal and completing the climb alongside one another all build relationships across the department and the service as a whole.
“It was great for camaraderie in the district,” Takeno said. “I got to go out there with a lot of other people in the department and got pretty close with them.”
After the unexpected passing of former Fire Chief Paul Hewitt in 2021, Takeno said continuing the climb took on added meaning as a way to carry forward a tradition that had been important under Hewitt’s leadership.
The Fire District has participated in the event for more than 10 years. This year’s group included Emery, Lewis, and Takeno as well as Bryson Allison, Courtney Bailey, Sean Briley, Tim Briley, Crispin Calvert, Sean Canterbury, Matthew Carlton, Michael Dean, Wesley Hedgecock, David Horning, Jackson Letterman, Jonathan Price, Sam Robison, Porter Royce, Robert Sharrar, Patrick Wells, Keaton Williamson and Hudson Zwahlen.
Zwahlen took first for the Fire District and 13th place overall, finishing in 13 minutes, 39 seconds in full gear, closely followed by his teammates, contributing to the department’s overall placement.
“It wasn’t just one or two people to get us to the top,” said Lewis. “It was all of us.”
Climbers were organized into battalions based on experience and prior times, entering the stairwell at timed intervals so each group could move through before the next began. But at each member’s start and finish, the rest of the Park City team was there, cheering each other on.
Preparation for the climb varied across the group. Some firefighters followed structured training tied to endurance sports, while others relied on the baseline fitness required for the job.
Emery said that foundation is a core part of how the Fire District prepares its firefighters. As part of recruit academy, every firefighter runs the stairs 15 times at the Utah Olympic Park as one of the final tests before graduation, a tradition that makes the Seattle Stairclimb all the more special for the Park City crew to look back on.
“We expect our staff to be ready to do the job every day,” Emery said. “This kind of falls into that.”
Some participants built on that base with additional training in preparation for Seattle. Some participants, like Zwahlen, who is training for the Boston Marathon, went in hoping to post competitive times, while others focused on managing the climb and finishing strong.
“You get out of it what you put in, and the people who put us on the board and who won, they were almost sprinting up those stairs,” said Royce.
Royce said the element of competition made him want to train, even if he didn’t necessarily need to. He approached the climb focused on the experience, aiming to stay in the middle of the pack.
Despite the physical strain, firefighters encouraged one another as they climbed, offering quick words of support while passing on the narrow landings. Lewis said that support was constant throughout the climb, with participants relying not only on their own training but on the presence of the others in their group, pushing through the same conditions.
“It’s good camaraderie,” Emery said. “It’s something you’re proud to be part of.”
With thousands of firefighters in attendance, Seattle became a temporary gathering point for the international fire service. Royce recalled seeing clusters of firefighters throughout the city, and often striking up conversations based on shared experience and purpose.
“We almost took over this little section of Seattle where there’s a bunch of firefighters, and everyone’s there for the same cause, and so everyone is friends. It’s like a powder day: Everyone is friends and just happy to be there,” said Royce.
The Park City Fire District’s fundraising effort relied on support from the local community. Firefighters reached out to businesses for donated items, organized raffles and collected individual contributions ahead of their fundraising event held Feb. 27 at the No Name Saloon.
Raffle tickets were sold both online and in person, and a wide range of Park City businesses donated prizes such as gift cards to local restaurants, memberships, coffee packages and services.
“We’re not fundraisers,” Lewis said. “We just did the best we could to reach out, and the Park City community really stepped up.”
Participation in the stair climb is voluntary, with firefighters taking time off work and covering their own travel and involvement. The department does not treat the event as part of its on-duty responsibilities, and fundraising efforts are conducted independently.
“That’s the least we can do,” Lewis said. “Show up for something like this and represent the community that supports us.”
With participation increasing in recent years, department leadership expects the group to continue growing.
“Whenever you join together for a specific cause, to help someone out, it’s just incredible. We’re all in this job to help out other people, and when we can do it in other ways, off the clock, and also add friendly competition to it — it was awesome to be there with everyone,” said Royce.