By Cate Lecuyer
Staff writer
February 21, 2008 08:34 am BEVERLY — Beverly firefighters don't need flames behind them to book it up the stairs. They're perfectly capable of sprinting up 41 flights, and they did it faster than 14 other fire squads during the Race up Boston Place, an annual fundraiser for the American Lung Association. They also raised more than $17,000 in donations. Lung Association event manager Erin Hickey presented the team with a trophy yesterday at the Hale Street fire station. The race was held earlier this month. Spectators watched as 65 teams ran up about 800 steps at the Mellon Financial Center in Boston. The teams ranged from running clubs to investment management companies, but it's evolving into sort of a competition for fire departments, Hickey said. Last year, there were only four, but word spread and this year there were 14. Most were from eastern Massachusetts, but some teams came from New Hampshire, Maine and as far away as Maryland. Beverly's contingent not only beat all the other fire departments but came in third overall. To be fair, the team included Salem fire Capt. Dennis Levasseur and two women from the Boxford Fire Department, as well as a couple nonfirefighters from a gym in Danvers. Chris Halloran, a Beverly firefighter who came in second overall with an individual time of six minutes and seven seconds, said he decided to organize the team after being challenged by an unnamed Danvers firefighter while working out with a friend at the previously mentioned gym. "He said, 'I'll go behind both of you so that when you pass out on the stairs, I can pick you guys up,'" Halloran said. Danvers, by the way, came in 23rd.
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Photos
The team organized by the Beverly Fire Department accepted a trophy from Erin Hickey, left, of the American Lung Association for finishing first among firefighters in the organization's Race up Boston Place fundraiser earlier this month. Staff photo