March 8, 1982

The No. 1 topic of conversation in a lower Manhattan firehouse this weekend was the possibility that women may be joining the firefighting ranks in New York City. Wariness and skepticism greeted the news that as a result of a ruling by a Federal judge last Friday, up to 45 women might be appointed as city firefighters. New York would be alone among the nation's largest cities in having that many women on the fire lines. However, there are several smaller cities with a number of women fighting fires, and an engine company in Seattle is commanded by a woman.

With the stock market battered to a 22-month low in some of the heaviest trading in the history of the New York exchange, Wall Street's leading money managers say no sustained improvement is likely without a sizable drop in interest rates. The market, they contend, is ''anticipating'' the future as usual, and what it is anticipating now is that the economic recovery promised for late 1982 will be either anemic or delayed as long as interest rates remain at current levels. As unemployment and the downward revision of profit estimates mounted during the past few weeks, ''there has been an unraveling of the economic consensus that the economy will begin to recover by mid-1982,'' said Eric Miller, chief of investment policy for the Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation. ''Right now the stock market is reflecting the selling by people who were slow to perceive that the economy has worsened to a greater degree than anyone expected,'' said Seth M. Glickenhaus, chairman of Glickenhaus & Company, a leading portfolio management firm. ''Just how low the market is going to go and when it will start to anticipate an economic recovery depends on the length of the recession-depression we are now in.''

A correction Saturday incorrectly described the Fusion Energy Foundation. It is a group that favors the use of nuclear power.

As soldiers with automatic weapons stood guard, Guatemalans voted today in elections for President, Vice President, members of Congress and municipal officials. Guatemalans say that if the elections are not tainted by fraud, as they have frequently been in the past, and if the army allows the people's choice to assume the presidency of Central America's most populous country, there is a possibility they could lead to a peaceful solution to the civil war here. At gas stations, schools, commercial arcades and municipal buildings, people waited in block-long lines for five or six hours before having their identification cards checked and receiving the three large paper ballots, one for President and Vice President, one for the national Congress and the third for municipal officials. Elections 'Our Last Chance' ''The elections are our last chance and everybody knows it,'' said a political leader. It is an assessment heard often here, from Guatemalans and United States officials.

''I'm not going to say the energy crisis is over, but we are certainly heading in the right direction.