What the Vigili del Fuoco competition is
The Corpo nazionale dei vigili del fuoco is Italy’s national fire and rescue service, part of the Ministero dell’Interno. It recruits into the base rank of vigile del fuoco through a concorso pubblico per titoli ed esami, a competition decided by both qualifications and tests.
The current edition was opened by decreto dipartimentale n. 2488 of 2 July 2026 for 400 permanent posts. Applications ran online from 3 July to 3 August 2026 through the service’s own portal at concorsionline.vigilfuoco.it, not through inPA, although inPA carries the notice and the convocation announcements. On 15 September 2026 the service was due to publish the arrangements for the preselection test on inPA and on vigilfuoco.it.
Who can apply
The qualification requirement is an upper secondary school diploma. The age limit is 26, raised to 37 for volunteer personnel of the Corpo nazionale who have been on the registers for at least a year. Candidates must also hold the psycho-physical and aptitude fitness required by the regulations in force, and must produce a certificato di idoneita sportiva agonistica, a competitive sports fitness certificate, within the terms set by the bando.
That certificate is worth planning around. It is issued by a sports medicine practitioner after an examination that includes an ECG, and appointments are not always available at short notice.
The notice also sets aside reserved quotas, reported as 45 percent for volunteers in ferma prefissata of the Armed Forces, 35 percent for volunteer personnel of the Corpo nazionale, and 15 percent for those who have completed universal civilian service. A candidate applying from ordinary civilian life competes for what remains, which is the part of the arithmetic most summaries leave out.
The preselection test
Because applications far exceed places, the first stage is a preselection. It is multiple choice, and the subject range is deliberately broad: Italian history, chemistry, physics, logical and deductive reasoning, computing and English.
Two features of this stage matter. The number admitted to the next stage is ten times the number of posts, so for a 400 post competition roughly 4,000 candidates go through. And the preselection score does not count towards the final merit score. It is a filter, not a head start. Candidates who invest heavily in squeezing out a high preselection result, at the expense of physical preparation, are optimising a number that is discarded the moment they pass.
The motor and aptitude tests
The examination proper consists of three prove motorio-attitudinali. Each is scored out of 30 and each is passed with a minimum of 21 out of 30, so a strong result in one does not rescue a failure in another.
The published description of the first test gives the flavour of the standard: Modulo A, traslocazione alla trave alta, requires crossing a balance beam 5 metres long and 10 centimetres wide, set at about 4 metres of height, within a maximum of 3 minutes. This is a working test of balance and composure at height rather than a gym exercise, and it is where candidates who have trained only for strength tend to lose points.
Qualifications are then scored and the final ranking is formed, including the reserved quotas.
Applying and what to check
The application route is the fire service’s own concorsi online system rather than inPA, which catches out candidates who assume every Italian public competition now runs through the single portal. Access requires a digital identity in the terms set by the bando.
Post counts, age limits, reserved quotas and the exact motor tests change between editions. The published bando on vigilfuoco.it is the authoritative text, and dates for the preselection and subsequent stages are announced on inPA and vigilfuoco.it rather than by individual notification.