Colors
Some departments, such as the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) use the helmet color to identify officers and functions and is listed as follows per .
- White: Chief Officer (Chief, Assistant Chief, Battalion Chief)
- Orange: Captain I and Captain II (Reflective tape blue under the helmet number is a Captain I "Engine Captain" / Red is a Captain II "Truck Captain"
- Yellow: Firefighter, Firefighter/Paramedic, Engineer, Apparatus Operator, Probationary Firefighter - no front shield
- Red: Arson
- Blue: Paramedic Single function non fire suppression certified or Firefighter Cadet/Intern
- Yellow Helmet with Green Numbers: Specialized companies Hazardous Materials, Urban Search and Rescue, Fire Boats
- Black: Fire Explorers (now called Fire Cadets)
- Orange Helmet with Green Numbers: Captains of the specialized Companies
The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) issues a black helmet to all ranks except those of Battalion Chief and up. These officers receive a white helmet. The FDNY uses the front shield of the helmet to distinguish both company number and the function of that company. The following colors denote function in the FDNY:
- Black: Engine Company
- Red: Ladder Company
- Blue: Rescue and Hazardous Materials Company
- Yellow: Squad Company
- Green: Marine Units
- Orange: Probationary Firefighter
The Houston Fire Department uses a combination of colored helmets and colored leather shields and colored coat striping to distinguish rank and function.
- Black: Firefighter and Engineer/Operator (E/O) with a black shield, Incident Command Technicians (ICT) also known as "Chief Chauffeurs" have a white shield
- Red : Captain with a red shield (Engine Captains) and a white shield for Senior Captains (Ladder Truck Captains).
- White: District Chiefs and above. Also all FF, E/Os and ICTs have yellow reflective on the bunker coats. Officers from Capt to Chief have red reflective.
Certain styles of helmets do not lend themselves to the use of leather helmet fronts. Typically these helmets use crescents on the side to distinguish function. These crescents come in a wide variety of titles and are usually reflective in nature.
In most cases here in the United states the colors will be as follows Fire chief, Assistant chief, Deputy Chief, Battalion chief : white Captain and LTs: red or yellow and vice versa. Engineers: red or black Firefighters: black in most cases, yellow at some departments Probationary: Orange, yellow Safety officer: Blue explorers and Jrs: Green and Yellow
Read more about this topic: Bunker Gear, Firefighter Helmet, United States
Famous quotes containing the word colors:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman who had been and still was very dear to me, I caught myself in the act of focusing on her temples and automatically analyzing the succession of appropriately graded colors which death was imposing on her motionless face.”
—Claude Monet (1840–1926)
“Language as a real thing is not imitation either of sounds or colors or emotions it is an intellectual recreation and there is no possible doubt about it and it is going to go on being that as long as humanity is anything.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)