By Tanya Eiserer
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2006 The Dallas Morning News
Austin is one of 10 cities — including Los Angeles and Phoenix — that worked with two national firefighting associations to develop a physical ability test for prospective candidates in 1999. Some 500 fire departments now use it nationwide.
That test simulates the tasks a firefighter must perform at a structure fire.
“You climb the stairs,” said Jill Craig, the Austin Fire Department’s fitness and wellness coordinator. “You carry your equipment in. You would raise a ladder. You’d force your entry. You’d search for a victim. Having found the victim, you’d rescue him by pulling him out the back out to the front door. And then you would do the overhaul, which would be ceiling breaching and pulling.”
While addressing concerns that parts of the test may discriminate against women — such as the time limits on the test — the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed with the International Association of Fire Fighters not to allow lawsuits about the test to proceed for five years while the test is studied. The firefighters’ association did agree to several steps to assure the fairness of the test, including requiring fire departments to offer orientation sessions prior to administering it.
Austin also runs a program that gives applicants who do well on the written test a chance to attend a 16-week fitness program geared toward increasing their lean body mass before taking the physical test. Since 2001, when the program kicked off, the passing rate of women has jumped from 33 percent to 80 percent, Ms. Craig said.
“The reason you give a test is essentially to qualify people who have the physical ability and to disqualify the ones who don’t,” Ms. Craig said. “We are very interested in creating diversity, but it was our feeling that we’d be better off mentoring our targeted population, giving them exposure to the job and to the test as opposed to backing off on the challenge of the test.”