Development and validation of a fitness screening protocol for firefighter applicants

It is imperative that fitness screening protocols for firefighter applicants embody the specific physical requirements of fighting fires. Based on the physiological characterization of experienced firefighters performing essential tasks, a test battery was developed that includes both job related performance tests and a combination of health related and performance related laboratory tests of physical fitness. Fifty-three firefighters with an average of 5.4 years of experience completed the battery and provided Likert scale comparisons of the tests with actual firefighting operations for criterion validation. "Acceptable" through "maximum" times were established for the job related performance tests, and "minimum" through "optimum" standards were developed for the physical fitness tests. Guidelines for the medical screening of firefighter applicants are also described. In addition, an overall scoring procedure was formulated for the ranking of acceptable applicants.