Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brandon Roark on October 12, 2009 at 12:03pm

The beautiful thing about the American fire service is that it is largely regionalized. I could tell you, with a certain degree of accuracy, what part of the US I was in just by walking into a firehouse. Equipment, lingo and apparatus are tell tell signs what region of the country you are in. Unlike our brothers and sisters across the pond where everything is largely uniform from one area to the next.

In so much as helmets go I would have to give the same answer...its regionalized rather than universal. A red helmet in my home department is a probie, where in my career dept. its a captain. A yellow helmet in my volunteer department isnt the same as a yellow helmet in our neighboring dept...and so on and so on.

I too have seen the helmets you are referring to but as far as a universal system...that i have yet to see, at least not here in the US.

Permalink Reply by Alan Shaw on October 12, 2009 at 5:58pm

I know that when the entire helmet is a single color, all bets are off. We used to issue Yellow helmets to our probies. One neighboring department issued the same type to their career drivers, and another neighboring department issued yellow to their Lieutenants. That was just one color and one city, and it got confusing.

Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on November 21, 2009 at 9:58pm

historically, engine = black, red= truck , blue = rescue.. White helmet chief, captain, Lt. black helmet captain white frontpiece, LT black frontpiece with white parts typically though some will argue they should have ALL white too.. a squad = yellow


having the combs painted is something done in San fransico especially and has been done in baston aas well usually to denote truck guys ..ie: red alternating combs .. this is based upon career eastern traditions .... HAving officer colored helmets like red for captains seems silly your departments aren''t big enough NOT to know who they are lol

Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on April 7, 2010 at 2:12pm

On my Department, Spokane Fire, we had black for engines and red for trucks. Then we changed to yellow for all with red and black numbers. When the current modern/salad bowel helmets came out we went to yellow for officers and red for firefighters. The switched to red for officers and yellow for FF to match the rest of our county and state. So we still have red and yellow. Alot of departments in Washington are changing back to black, it was banned by our state safety standard for 30 years because of low visibilty, then we discovered reflective tape!!Now I am so confused, I just know my helmet is the red leather one!