Overview Fight For Air Climb is the American Lung Association's national series of stair climbs, about 30 events a spring, up the stairwells of city towers and the seating bowls of stadiums, and firefighters climb them in full structural gear with their air packs on. The 2026 series ran from late February into May, from Los Angeles to New York to Miami. Climbers raise money to take part, and the Lung Association says 90 cents of every dollar goes to research, programs and advocacy. The Lung Association, which counts 120 years of work on lung health, ran its first climb more than 35 years before the 2026 series. On site Each climb is a single day in one building or stadium. In New York City in 2026 that meant 55 floors of PENN 1; in Buffalo it meant 500 steps up and down the stands of Sahlen Field. The day runs as an Open Stairclimb for the public alongside a Firefighter Stairclimb and a no-gear race for first responders. Full-gear firefighters wear coat, pants, helmet and a breathing tank and mask, or a 20-pound weight in place of the pack, and carry no tools on the stairs. Firefighters compete in teams of three, and team times are summed or averaged for the awards. Audience The field runs from first-timers to competitive stair racers. They come as teams of friends, family, neighbors and coworkers, alongside fire departments and first-responder crews, and at Buffalo in 2026 that mix was 415 climbers. Track record The Lung Association puts participation across the series at tens of thousands of people a year. The Buffalo climb at Sahlen Field on May 9, 2026 raised $200,000 for lung cancer and lung disease work in New York.