Ex-Portarlington CFA captain to take on stair climb

A FORMER CFA Portarlington captain is excited to take on a long-awaited personal challenge later this year.

Darren Nisbet, who has been a crew member for 35 yearsm will join his fellow firefighters and emergency personnel at this year’s Melbourne Firefighter Stair Climb on September 7 in the initiative’s 11th year.

“I’m super-keen and excited to be accepted into the stair climb,” Mr Nisbet said.

“It’s also good to take on the challenge, both on a personal level, raising awareness for suicide prevention and depression is a major topic among the CFA and this is a terrific avenue to help do it.”

The annual stair climb, held at Crown Metropol in Melbourne, is aiming to raise close to $750,000 to support its beneficiaries, such as Lifeline, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation and 000Foundation, providing crucial cancer research and crisis support.

Mr Nisbett said his family had also battled cancer recently and hoped the money he raised went into research to fight the deadly disease.

He was also taken aback by the community’s response to his announcement to take part in the stair climb – a challenge he has wanted to complete since 2020.

“The support from the brigade and the community has been amazing, I wasn’t expecting that sort of response, and they’ve gotten around me financially as well as morally already,” he said.

“It only adds to my motivation to train harder and do better on the day.”

Mr Nisbet, a well-respected volunteer of the Bellarine community, admitted climbing 28 floors up Crown Metropol wearing 25kg of turnout gear would be a significant challenge, but his training had already begun.

“It’s really about pushing myself beyond the limits I have,” he said.

“I’ve already started training in civic gear and now I’m raising the intensity at the moment, doing 50 flights every second day.

“I’ll start intensifying that further in the next couple weeks and I’ll rely on my friends and family as it continues to get more difficult.”

To donate to Mr Nisbet’s efforts, head to firefighterclimb.org.au/climber/darrennisbet