A team from Alexandra last year raised the second-highest amount of money for the sponsored charity, the Blood and Leukemia Foundation.
Last year everyone competed successfully finishing in 13 to 18 minutes.
Alexandra station officer John Mawhinney said six firefighters from Alexandra and six from Cromwell would take part in the challenge.
New Alexandra member Charlene Ruffel is travelling with the team as a support person.
Mr Mawhinney said the teams had been training hard and Contact Energy had allowed them to use the stairs at the Clyde Dam for practice.
The teams will run in the "donned and started'' category, which means they will wear full breathing apparatus as well as their full fire fighting gear, which weighs 25kg, Mr Mawhinney said.
A new category has been introduced for teams of three.
The first member will start outside the Sky Tower and run to the seventh level.
The second person takes the baton to the 44th floor and the third member completes the climb to the 51st floor.
The baton is a folded 30m length of fire hose, weighing 10 to 15kg.
The Alexandra team is John Mawhinney, Mark Hutton, Phil McKenzie, Wayne Hill, Kevin Malcolm, and Clark McNaughton, with Charlene Ruffel as support.
The Cromwell team is Paul Bisset, John Searle, Philip Ryan, Brent Anderson, Lawrie Young and Roydon Cullimore.
