Jonesboro firefighters win awards, break records at regional competition

Baton Rouge, LA — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — May 20, 2025 — Members of the Jonesboro Fire Department’s Invincible Combat Fire Challenge Team showed off their skills, won multiple awards and broke a record twice at the 2025 Southwest Regional Firefighter Challenge Classic over the weekend.

The competing JFD challenge team members included driver Jonathan Edwards, Capt. Cody Nelson, and firefighters Logan Scott and Hunter Pagan. The competition took place May 15-17 in Baton Rouge, LA.

For individual awards, Edwards placed second in the Individual Qualifier and Nelson placed second in the Individual Overall. Nelson and Scott set the TFT Firefighter Challenge Championship Series’ tandem record for Arkansas, which was then set again by Scott and Pagan.

This also qualified the team for the U.S. National Championship event Sept. 24-27 in Oklahoma City, OK.

“It’s been actually amazing,” Edwards said. “We’ve got to travel to some incredible events and meet people from all over the United States that are coming to compete with us. We have made friendships and contacts while learning more about different ways to train, as well as how other fire departments operate across the country.”

The competition is open to any firefighter from around the world. Athletes residing in the southwest region, which is made up of Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, compete for southwest region titles and records. This is the only annual event where these regional titles and records can be earned. Winners will maintain their titles and records until the next season’s regional event.

Edwards said he and Nelson started the challenge team to compete in 2024.

“We wanted to go compete and spread the word,” Edwards said. “Jonesboro is here, and we’re ready to compete. We’re contenders in this thing.”

Jonesboro Fire Chief Martin Hamrick said the department was proud of the team.

“It reflects on the hard work they do every day and the things they do to keep themselves in shape and ultimately it all goes back to provide a good service for the community,” Hamrick said. “The mental resiliency they build through doing the challenge and then the extra workouts and things that just correlate back to the work they do here and make their job safer and easier for them.”