Italian firemen are hot

Yesterday night we went again to Hacettepe University concerts. The last to play was a german band, who spoke in german to the public: it is the proof that closing the borders to stop the mix of people and culture does not make sense anymore. I met some nice turkish people, and with one of them we were joking about national stereotypes when i asked me: "is is true that italian firemen are hot?": i was very perplexed, and i answered that i ddn't know because i don not know any firemen (neither italian nor form other countries). I knew a lot of other stereotypes about mafia and food, but not about firemen. He told me that some italians had told that to him, so now i really need to understand: can anybody help me explain why italian firemen are hot? hot in what sense?