FIRE TEST RAISES QUESTIONS

Fire Test Raises Questions

The key answers for the recent exam for Firefighter suggest that the Department of Citywide Services, which conducted the test, either wasn't aiming for precision or wasn't requiring it of the candidates for the job.

Out of 195 questions on the two-part test, 88 had more than one acceptable answer. It should be noted that this 45-percent multiple-answer rate comes before candidate challenges, which are the primary reason that more than one answer to any question is ultimately deemed okay.

The departure from the norm may be a product of the pressure the city is feeling - in no small part from a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit - to better diversify the firefighting force, which is about 91-percent white and 99-percent male.

If a test eliminates the close calls that make one possible answer better than a second one, it could narrow the gap between someone who scores a 90 on the test and someone who scores an 85. One reason the FDNY has not better integrated its work force is that while black candidates have passed previous exams at a high rate, their scores were generally not as strong as white candidates, meaning that many of them do not place high enough on the eligible list to gain appointment.

And so it may well be that city officials have decided to hold a less-exacting exam for Firefighter - much as they have done for Police Officer beginning with the Koch administration back in the mid-1980s - and leave it to the training period in the Fire Academy to determine which candidates, after making it through the written test and a physical that is now being scored pass/fail, aren't quite good enough.

They may feel confident in taking that course because the training period has been extended from 13 to 23 weeks - a move that was also prompted by the decision to lower the education standards so that candidates no longer need 30 college credits to be hired.

The revamped test has drawn criticism - some from those who took the exam, and some from veterans of the FDNY who wondered why some of the questions asked candidates to imagine that they'd already been on the job for an extended period in responding to a hypothetical situation.

A question cited by one candidate - and the answers to it that were deemed correct - should give the FDNY pause. It involved a rookie Firefighter toward the end of a busy shift responding to a call for a fire on the 32nd floor of a high-rise. The building's elevator was broken, and neither smoke nor flames were visible from outside. The question posed was, should the rookie tell his commander that he was too tired to climb the stairs?

We would be inclined to agree with this test-taker, who given five options for the answer that ranged from "highly desirable" to "highly undesirable," chose "highly undesirable."

Other candidates told him that they had answered that telling the commander of their weariness was "highly desirable" or "desirable," and those turned out to be the correct answers.

We are as mystified as the candidate as to why that would be the case. The lack of visible smoke outside the building would not mean that there was no fire inside. And a rookie Firefighter looking to gain acceptance from his or her colleagues would not figure to beg off climbing stairs simply because of fatigue. If no firefighters with greater seniority were raising questions about whether the climb might be wasted effort, it's hard to imagine rookies putting themselves in the position of being seen as less-conscientious or slackers.

A more-natural impulse would be for the rookies to try to prove themselves by being gung-ho. There have been occasional instances where firefighters were killed or seriously injured going into a burning building where they weren't sure that all the residents had gotten out. By the logic of the test question and its accepted answers, they should not be doing that unless they are positive that somebody is still inside and has a reasonable chance of surviving if rescued.

City officials may have concluded that making the test less-exacting would allow them to diversify without hurting the quality of the firefighting force as long as the expanded academy training serves as a backstop. We would have to question, however, whether an exam that rewards candidates who believe fatigue is an excuse for not ensuring that an emergency report is just a false alarm before backing off will produce those who can follow in the tradition of The Bravest.