By Zak Koeske
The Daily Southtown
HOMEWOOD, Ill. — A consortium of south suburban fire departments on Wednesday opened the region’s first firefighter candidate testing center, a major step toward aligning local hiring practices with national standards.
Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Division 24, which consists of 20 departments in southern Cook County that assist one another through mutual aid agreements, partnered with the National Testing Network, a pre-employment testing service, to launch the testing facility at MABAS Division 24 headquarters in Homewood.
Aspiring local firefighters, who had previously traveled long distances, including across state lines, to take the nationally recognized Candidate Physical Ability Test required by many departments, can now do so in their own backyard.
“Candidates aspiring to be firefighters had to travel well beyond their own communities to pursue their career dreams, so we at MABAS 24 made it happen,” Glenwood fire chief and MABAS 24 president Kevin Welsh said. “Once the concept was brought to us, we were going to do whatever we needed to do to build it.”
In addition to adding convenience, MABAS officials said they hope the testing center will help standardize the firefighter hiring process in the region.
Because there is no recognized regional or statewide physical ability test that firefighters must pass before being hired, individual departments and fire protection districts have historically created their own tests or contracted with outside companies to administer tests.
As a result, physical ability tests have varied widely by department, and some, including the city of Chicago’s, invited costly litigation from applicants who asserted the tests were discriminatory.
The Candidate Physical Ability Test, or CPAT, which will be administered at the new testing center, is considered legally defensible and non-discriminatory, however. Both the International Association of Fire Fighters and the International Association of Fire Chiefs endorse the test.
The CPAT is an eight-event course of job-specific actions, such as a hose drag, ladder raise and search and rescue that candidates must complete in less than 10 minutes and 20 seconds.
“The advantage to this system is this is all tested and true replica of the agility and the ability needed to become a firefighter,” Welsh said. “It is not necessarily calisthenics or pull-ups or chin-ups... All eight stations are directly related to the performance of the duties of a firefighter.”
In the past, departmental tests may have required candidates to run a mile in under 9 minutes or hang on a chin-up bar for 2 minutes, even though neither task was necessary for actually performing the job of firefighter. Such tests, which often favor male candidates over female candidates, were challenged in court and have become a potential liability for departments that still use them.
“Were they really important?” Welsh said of the tasks required to pass earlier physical ability tests. “Or were they just, we wanted to weed out some of the wieners? And that’s what it came down to. Now this is a true tested process.”
Whether individual departments or fire protection districts require the CPAT for all candidates will remain up to them, but Welsh said he hopes he can get all of his MABAS 24 partners on board.
“The advantage to the local municipality or the commission is the fact that they don’t have to worry about being challenged in the court of law because their test wasn’t validated,” he said. “The liability lies on (National Testing Network), and that’s huge to a village administrator or to a fire district president. This is tested and true and ready to go, and why they wouldn’t take advantage of it, I don’t know.”
Aspiring firefighters can register online to take a CPAT test at the Homewood facility for $125. The registration fee includes a packet with exercises to help candidates train for the course and the opportunity to attend orientation sessions where candidates can familiarize themselves with the eight stations in person. Candidates also can attempt up to two timed practice runs for $39 a pop, if they wish.
The CPAT test, which upon passage is good for one year, is intended for entry-level firefighters hoping to break into the profession, South Holland Deputy Fire Chief Bryant Krizik said.
Because the test is standardized and nationally recognized, it is transferable to any department across the country that requires it, meaning that a certified firefighter candidate can apply to multiple departments, including ones out-of-state, without having to travel or take multiple tests.
Working firefighters who already adhere to their own department’s training and wellness programs are not required to take the CPAT unless they’re switching departments, explained Krizik, a major proponent of opening the new testing center.
He said the Homewood facility would offer two testing sessions per month to start, but could expand to as many as three times a week within a year, depending on demand.
The testing location also will provide computer-based testing for entry-level firefighters, law enforcement officers, corrections officers and emergency communications applicants.
The money MABAS 24 earns from operating the testing facility will go toward paying off the $70,000 outlay the division made to purchase the center’s specialized training equipment, he said.
“This is a profession and we hold our people to high standards and now we have a consistently applied standard, physical fitness standard, to bring people in the door and establish that level of credibility, that level of professionalism and that level of ability to respond to what the community needs,” Krizik said.
Copyright 2017 The Daily Southtown