It will be five years next January since the City of New York last gave a test for the position of firefighter with the New York City Fire Department.

Word that applications will become available in July and August to be filed in September for an examination administered in either November or December is, as yet, unofficial.

“Perhaps, we don’t know,” FDNY Assistant Commissioner of Recruitment and Diversity Michelle Maglione said at the May meeting of the Queens Borough Cabinet. “The city is in the midst of creating a brand new exam.” A federal judge invalidated the 2007 firefighter exam on the grounds that it discriminated against minorities.

What Maglione is sure of is the department’s desire to have women apply for the next written exam. “FDNY seeks a workforce that reflects the diversity of the city’s available talent pool,” Maglione said.

“There’s not that many women on this job,” Jackie Michelle Martinez, a firefighter and the Queens Borough Representative for the United Women Firefighters (UWF), said. “We need to reach out to the community for recruitment.”

Of the current 10,849 FDNY members, 30 are women. “That’s less than one percent (0.028 percent),” Sarina Srisakul, a member of FDNY Engine Company 5 in Manhattan and a UWF vice president, said. Srisakul added that the first woman firefighter was hired in 1982 under a court mandate.

Regina Wilson, president of UWF and a firefighter for 12 years stationed at Engine Company 219 in Brooklyn, said she knows that because firefighter exams are generally administered every four years, the coming exam is a unique opportunity to broaden the number of women firefighters.

“[UWF] offers training specifically geared for female candidates,” Wilson said. A training program, including classes, instructors and mentors, has been conducted by UWF over the past 20 years. The program is geared to help women pass the physical portion (Candidates Physical Abilities Test) of the firefighter exam. All the current 30 FDNY women firefighters have been through the UWF training program.

The physical exam is focused on strength and agility and although there are no height, weight or other physical requirements, women are judged by the same pass/fail standard on 10 physical ability tests that men must pass to become firefighters.

“To become a firefighter is a difficult task,” Martinez said. “It is not an easy job.”

Through the program, female candidates purchase a 50-pound weighted vest and a gripping machine to strengthen forearm muscles for handling heavy tools. The weighted vest is worn throughout the physical portion of the firefighter exam.

“It’s a common myth that women are too weak,” Srisakul said. “It’s a matter of training our bodies, just as men do.”

Maglione said that since January 2010, the FDNY has collected 138,587 “expressions of interest” in the next firefighter exam. Recruitment presentations have been made at more than 50,000 events so far this year, too, she said, as part of a strategic effort to increase FDNY diversity.

If the exam does go forward, Maglione said FDNY ideally has two classes per year at the fire academy. “It’s a very competitive test and [candidates] must ace the exam,” she said, adding, that the FDNY is “the best job in the world”.

For more information, contact unitedwomenfirefighters@gmail.com.