“In the fire service, everybody pulls their own weight,” firefighter Kori Kelly said.
Kori Kelly is a 13-year veteran career firefighter.
“I know I’m held to a standard and on top of that, I hold myself to a higher standard to make sure that I don’t slip,” Kelly said.
Kelly is concerned over newly proposed legislation that would lower the physical test requirements for women to become firefighters.
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“It’s a huge safety liability, the whole point of having the national standard is having a bar that everyone has to reach,” Kelly said.
Currently, all candidates regardless of gender are required to wear a 50-pound vest during the test. It is supposed to mirror the experience of wearing heavy gear and an air tank while performing firefighter duties.
The risk, Kelly said, if someone does not have to meet these capabilities, will they still be able to save lives?
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“I can’t change any of the weights of the civilians I have to rescue,” Kelly said.
Five democrats introduced the bill earlier this month. According to the language, the purpose is to allow for a more diverse class of candidates by offering an alternative to the 50-pound vest component.
“We know there are not enough women involved in the fire service and really the big barrier to get into the fire academy is the candidate physical ability test,” Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett said.
Garrett is pushing for the bill to pass. In town, the fire department has been forced to turn women away because they didn’t pass the required test by a small margin.
“I’m looking at just taking a few pounds of the backpacks, the weighted vest so that we can get more women to pass the CPAT test and then not at all changing the standard with the Connecticut Fire Academy,” Garrett said.
The language did not address exactly what the alternative would be. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Public Safety and Security.
