45% of EMS staff seeks fire jobs

WHERE’S THE fire?

EMS workers are in such a rush to get out of the ambulance and into the firehouse that nearly 50% of them signed up to take the city firefighter test next week — forcing the FDNY to call for mandatory overtime to cover all its 911 medical shifts.

The entrance exam will be administered from Monday to Dec. 16 — and 1,591 members of EMS will go offline to take it.

That’s roughly 45% of EMS’ 3,700-strong workforce and nearly 65% of the 2,500 who are under 29 and age-eligible, sources said. In one Bronx EMS station, 42 emergency medical techs and paramedics out of 86 signed up.

To compensate, the FDNY preemptively alerted staff they may be held over for extra ambulance shifts on those days.

Normally, EMS workers who sign up in advance for three overtime rotations a month are exempt from last-minute holdovers. The FDNY only forces mandatory overtime when it anticipates a “significant condition” — like half the workforce being off.

Next week’s exam is a promotional one — meaning it’s only open to EMS workers. Those who score a 70 or higher are fasttracked into the FDNY ahead of outside applicants who take the open competitive exam next year.

EMS has long been a backdoor expressway into the higher-paying firefighter gig — $100,000 after five years on the job versus $45,000 for EMTs — and is utilized by sons and relatives of FDNY bigwigs as well as others.

Former Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano’s son Joseph Cassano is among the EMTs taking next week’s test to become a firefighter, documents show.