Does the FRNSW medical test colour vision?

Colour vision is commonly assessed in firefighter medicals because the role relies on reading colour-coded information. The exact standard and how borderline results are handled are set in the assessment guidelines you're given — check your own intake material rather than assuming a pass or fail.

Can I become a firefighter if I wear glasses or contacts?

Corrected vision is generally acceptable up to a defined standard, but the specifics vary and are set by FRNSW's medical guidelines. If your uncorrected vision is poor, see an optometrist early and ask how your correction measures against the standard in your candidate material.

Should I declare a past injury or condition?

Yes. Declare honestly. The background and medical checks are thorough, and a mismatch between what you declared and what the assessment finds is far more damaging than a managed, disclosed condition. Many past injuries that have healed and are well-managed are not disqualifying.

FRNSW medical assessment: what to expect

The medical assessment comes late in the FRNSW process, once the field is small. By this point you’ve cleared the cognitive stages, the PAT and the interview — so the medical isn’t about out-competing anyone. It’s a single question: are you medically fit to do firefighting work safely? Most candidates pass, and most of the ones who don’t fail on something that was either avoidable or correctable with earlier preparation.

A note on sourcing: firefighter medicals are assessed against defined fitness-for-duty guidelines, and the exact standards and how borderline results are handled are set in the material FRNSW provides. The areas below are the components a career-firefighter medical typically covers — treat your own assessment guidelines as the source of truth for specific thresholds.

Grid of the eight areas a firefighter medical typically screens: vision and colour vision, hearing by audiometry, lung function by spirometry, cardiovascular health and blood pressure, musculoskeletal function, medical history and medications, a drug and alcohol screen, and general health including BMI.

What the medical is screening for

A firefighter medical maps to the work, not to a generic health MOT. The areas it typically covers:

Vision and colour vision. Acuity (corrected or uncorrected to a standard), visual fields, and colour vision, because the role relies on reading colour-coded and visual information under stress.
Hearing. Audiometry, because you need to take and give instructions in a loud, chaotic environment.
Lung function. Spirometry, because you’ll work under breathing apparatus and respiratory capacity is directly job-relevant.
Cardiovascular health and blood pressure. Firefighting places sudden, heavy demand on the heart; this screens for risk.
Musculoskeletal function. Joint range, movement quality and back health, because the job is physically loaded and repetitive.
Medical history and medications. A review of what you’ve declared, current medications, and managed conditions.
Drug and alcohol screen. A standard pre-employment screen.
General health, including BMI. An overall read on fitness for duty.

The avoidable fails

The most common avoidable problems aren’t dramatic. They’re things like turning up dehydrated and reading high on blood pressure, having an undeclared issue surface in a way that reads as concealment, or discovering a borderline vision result on the day with no time to address it.

The fix is early preparation. See your GP well before the medical and run the obvious checks — blood pressure, vision, hearing — so nothing is a surprise on the day. If something is borderline, you want to know months out, while you can still act on it, not in the assessment chair.

Declare honestly — it matters more than you think

The instinct to hide a healed injury or a managed condition is understandable and almost always a mistake. The background and reference checks that run alongside this stage are thorough, and a mismatch between your declaration and what the assessment finds does far more damage than the condition itself ever would. Many past injuries that have healed and conditions that are well-managed are not disqualifying. Concealment, on the other hand, reads as a probity problem — and that’s a different and worse category of fail.

Prepare your body, not just your paperwork

The candidates who sail through the medical are usually the ones who arrived at the PAT genuinely fit rather than crash-trained — the same conditioning that clears the PAT circuit tends to produce good blood pressure, good lung function and a resilient musculoskeletal system. If you’ve trained sensibly over months rather than scrambling in the final weeks, the medical usually reflects that.

Where this fits

The medical is the second-to-last gate before recruit school in the full FRNSW process. By the time you reach it you’ll have cleared the early cuts — Stage 2’s cognitive battery and video interview and the PAT — so the medical is mostly about confirming nothing disqualifies you. It’s not a stage you out-train in the final week — it’s a reflection of how you’ve looked after yourself across the whole campaign.

Inside FirePrep, the Wellness Coach tracks the lifestyle factors — sleep, recovery, stress — that quietly show up in cardiovascular and general-health readings, and tags in the PAT Coach when training load is working against your recovery. The free 15-minute readiness check is the place to start building that picture.