What color is your helmet?

A lot of times, the role of a firefighter is determined by the color of his helmet, but accross the board there is no uniformity in establishing just who is who.  For instance in one County, a Red helmet is a new firefighter, but in an adjoining county, a red helmet could be that of an officer. In a critical situation where mutual aid is needed, it could be critical to properly identify who is who without actually going up and asking the person their names and titles.  Would you think that perhaps it should be necessary to establish a common system  used by everyone to avoid fire scene confusion?  Just wanted to see what folks think? 

 

I'm a Red helmet. In my County it means I am the new firefighter.  What do the different colors mean where you are? Do you even classify people by the color of their helmet? 

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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on October 19, 2011 at 7:51pm

So Jack, just what color is your helmet?  Inquiring minds you know!

 

Permalink Reply by Scott Sammons on October 19, 2011 at 8:05pm

Our Chief and Asst's are White, Our Captain is Red, Our Leiut's have Yellow and Firefighters are Black. Many of our firefighters and Officers ware plastic/poly helmets. I use my original Black leather helmet even when I was a Lieut. Black Leather Forever!

Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on October 19, 2011 at 11:25pm

Since you asked, I'll repost my reply to this exact same conversation started by Txfiremanlee on March 28, 2008 at 9:31 PM.

 

I gave my previous Administrative Assistant a pink helmet when she complained about not having a helmet to hang on her office wall like the training officers had. I even made her some custom reflective decals that said "Training Goddess".

Other helmet color meanings are as follows:

Dull Black: been to a few fires, can't tell what color the helmet used to be

Shiny black: new helmet, hasn't been around much fire
 

Red: see "shiny black", a new helmet that belongs to a company officer

White: see "shiny black", belongs to a chief officer that has a new helmet and/or doesn't do many training burns

Pink: a chief officer's helmet that has been discolored by UV rays
 

Amber: a chief officer's helmet that has been discolored by even more UV rays

Brown: a leather helmet worn by someone who can't find the black high-temp paint

Transparent: a helmet that has had the s*** beaten out of it

Camoflage: you can't see it, so you don't know what color it is
 

Infrared: invisible except to the thermal imaging camera operator


Ultraviolet: makes the wearer look like Elvis under a blacklight


Blue: a helmet that has gotten really cold during one of our occasional February cold snaps


Yellow: STRANGER DANGER - we don't issue that color

Green: helmet that is very envious of the dull black helmets

Gold: misplaced Notre Dame helmet found in Mick Mayer's locker
Does that about cover it?
Permalink Reply by matt smith on October 20, 2011 at 9:22am

Strathclyde Fire & Rescue

Yellow - Firefighter

Yellow 2 black bands - Crew Commander

White 1 12mm black band - Watch Commander

White 1 19mm black band - Station commander

 

Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on October 20, 2011 at 12:58pm

Ben,

NO AMOUNT of sarcasm  or POSTING LINKS TO EARLIER POSTS ON HELMET COLOR will ever stop these discussions.

These discussions provoke a PAVLOVIAN RESPONSE, an uncontrollable NEED to HAVE to RESPOND to ANY post regarding COLOR. 

It is the ONLY area in which many have ANY knowledge.  Even though I posted the following on PAGE 1

Reply by Jack/dt on October 13, 2011 at 9:35pm
Delete

Color of helmets

http://my.firefighternation.com/group/theofficersclub/forum/topics/...

helmet color! what does it mean????

http://my.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/889755:Topic:481934

Cross Trained Helmet

http://my.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/cross-trained-helmet

 

Should All FD have the same color turnouts? What color do you prefer?

http://my.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/should-all-fd-have-the...

 

I suspect that people DON'T even SEE it.  Must be some kind of selective vision impairment: 'Oh joy, I have an opinion about color helmets'

This is why this site has degraded as much as it has.  In fact, the ONLY decent discussion in MONTHs has been the one on inmates.  Sad that it took a nonsense idea to such as that to even get a discussion going.  On the other hand:

WHAT COLOR TURN OUT GEAR SHOULD INMATES WEAR?

[think that will bring out the 'what-color junkies'?]

Permalink Reply by capcityff on October 20, 2011 at 2:49pm
Who cares what color your helmet is?  Go learn about something useful.
Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on October 20, 2011 at 3:25pm

Jack,

 

{snicker}...but unfortunately, you are right.

 

Maybe we should start a thread on "WHAT COLOR IS YOUR HELMET IF I AM COLOR-BLIND?", too.

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on October 20, 2011 at 5:18pm
ruff, ruff, ruff..........ruff, ruff, ruff.............ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff
Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on October 20, 2011 at 5:35pm
Exactly!
Permalink Reply by ashfire on October 20, 2011 at 8:15pm

I know there was one for color of turnout gear and that has been marked on this forum.

I have seen some foreign  fire depts use different colors to ID different operations in their service.

I have seen Japan use this.

 Firefighters have silver helmets with either silver turnouts or PBI mustard color turnouts with red reflextive.

Rescue service firefighters with silver helmets and orange turnouts or gold helmets with black turnouts and red reflextive.

 Volunteers have green helments and silver turnouts.

 Ranks are determined by the number and size of strips on the helmets.

Sometimes most of them wear US style WW2 helmets mostly white or green during training or during opertaions.

 Some are moving to more modern design helmets designed by Pacific Helmets.

 EMS will wear the WW2 helmet and some are starting to wear EMS turnouts like jump suits or non structure turnouts.

Permalink Reply by Michael P. Burke on October 21, 2011 at 2:19pm
Fellas, we can put the Irons away and stop chasing each other with the K-12. it was a newbie question.  I am a newbie. I didn't research such a question going all the way back to 2008 before I asked it because I didn't know this site existed back then and I was also not a Firefighter then. It was meant to be simple new guy question not a knock down dragged out brawl all over the internet. Everybody does it a little differently but as long as the fire's out that's the main thing right? Can we put this fire out now?
Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on October 21, 2011 at 3:22pm

Michael,

You appear a bit disingenuous in your claim that since you're a newbie you should be excused for not knowing about a post from 2008, yet from your writing as well as your profile, you come across as both smart and knowledgeable.  So I would find it hard to believe that someone who did high profile security would be completely baffled by something so site-fundamental as a SEARCH function.

Also, how about knocking of the condescending attitude.  Maybe read some of the links that were posted and read people's comments, helmet color is one of those annoying posts that keeps popping up by (mostly) junior (children) 'firefighters' because apparently, WHAT COLOR something is is of paramount importance to the stamp-collector/hobbyists in the fire service.  Back to condescension, you ain't been here long enough to see what a "knock down dragged out brawl" looks like in here, and you've been in the fire service HOW long? (0 years) and you're gonna lecture us about using the irons and K-12...really?  That's cute.

 

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