What hiring gap? FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano testified yesterday that the nation’s largest fire department is making great strides toward increasing the number of minorities in its ranks.

Cassano took the stand at a special bench trial in Brooklyn federal court to gauge ways to attract more minorities to an agency where white men make up 93 percent of the force.

“We recruit as many minority candidates as we can . . . and then it’s up to the candidates,” he said after the hearing.

The trial grows out of a federal civil-rights suit by the Justice Department against the city over the FDNY’s racial imbalance.