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Is There A Standard For Helmet Colors On The Fire Ground?
After a Mutual Aid Fire the other night,I got to thinking that helmet colors on the fire ground should be standardized somehow.This after I made an Observation that a "Black Hat" was giving orders.I fallowed along of course,with him being odviously my senior firefighter.But as the night went on I glanced over at his helmet,and realized that the "rockers" on his helmet said,"ASST.CHIEF",an so did the back of his coat.I thought this was odd,since all the other Chiefs where wearing White helmets.And I also noticed other Officers & Us Crew wearing various colors.Mostly Yellow & Black.This was confusing.Our Fire District Helmet Colors are as fallows...
White-Chief (& Capt.until 1988) Yellow w/White Shield-Capt. Yellow w/Black Shield-Lieu. Blue-Company EMS Capt./Lt. Red w/ White Shield-Safety Officer Black-Firefighter Orange-Explorer Orange Hard Hat-Fire Police.
What are your Company's Helmet colors?,and Do you think there should be a Standard?
Update:Tiger Schmittendorf has let me know that there is NO STANDARD In The United States.But Still The Question Looms Should There Be?
White-Chief (& Capt.until 1988) Yellow w/White Shield-Capt. Yellow w/Black Shield-Lieu. Blue-Company EMS Capt./Lt. Red w/ White Shield-Safety Officer Black-Firefighter Orange-Explorer Orange Hard Hat-Fire Police.
What are your Company's Helmet colors?,and Do you think there should be a Standard?
Update:Tiger Schmittendorf has let me know that there is NO STANDARD In The United States.But Still The Question Looms Should There Be?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brandon on
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i think there sould be some standard as to helmet colors on the fire ground makes things easy to me my depts and most of the depts in the county and citys and federal depts in North carolina and from what i have seen while travling are as follows
Black or Yellow is Firefighter/Engineer
Blue is a Firefighter/EMT of plain old Paramedics or some sort of Medical
Red is Capt/Leui
white is Chief/Ass Chief/Batt Chief and so forth
and oragne of green would be cadets/explorer/junior FF
that way you can id who you are talking to and what is going on obviously the orange or green would be to tell someone that they are new and have no clue what they are doing so dont grab em up and take em in... that is my personal opinion on fire ground helmets and i think it should be standardized all over the only wierd one i seen that was any diff was there is one dept in my county that all the FF wear Red helmets and the officers wear black that is way backwards to me and i found that out on a call one day when i was like hey Capt what do you need from me on this side he said im just a FF no officer and i did notice more red that day then black so very confusing but what ever SOP/SOG the depts runs is what we have to deal with...
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Permalink Reply by Mark on
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Our company and others around us use the same color helmets. Chief,Asst Chief,Capt,Lt are white helmets with White fronts red backgrounds ,white letters.Firefighters are black and Juniors are yellow.Safety Officers are blue and fire police are Red.This is in NJ. Hope this helps. But i notice that each state is different. Now in VT- Chief & asst are white,Capt &Lt are red,firefighters are yellow.Now we used to have all black with white fronts but that was too confusing on firegorund ,you had to look for a white front ,so we switched to the above usage.
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Permalink Reply by Captain Chaos on
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I don't understand why we would need a Standard for the entire US, nor do I believe that you could get everyone to agree. A State standard, maybe, but more workable would be a County Standard. That is what we do in our County. When we go to an Auto Aid or Mutual Aid assignment in our County, you can pretty much count on a Red Hat being a Captain, a Yellow Hat being a Firefighter, etc.
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Permalink Reply by ILDisasterEMT on
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This can be confusing. My department has a standardization which is used across the board...except where it isnt...LOL.
Chiefs/Chaplain- White
Probies- Yellow for 1 year
Firefighters-Red
Officers-Black
Our EMS is handled by an in-house private agency who refuse to wear helmets, except for the firefighters who are above the level of first responder (which is the mandated minimum, basically just for CPR/AED training). In a department of somewhere between 60-80 FFs, perhaps 12-15 are EMT-Bs. No Paramedics. I have an EMT/Star of Life helm-tet on my helmet which is reflective blue, largely so I can be picked out of a crowd of us standing around when there is a necessity of for a FF to render medical aide or assist with rehab (I have found that often FFs dont like to take rehab orders from private EMS responders). I also plan on putting EMT in reflective letters on the back of my bunkers once my permanent ones are issued. Some of our guys also use the "Firefighter-EMT" helmet crescents.
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Permalink Reply by Keith Pottiger on
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Good evening folks. At the station that i run with and which i am a Lt. The chiefs have a white helmet and the capt. and Lt's have a red helmet. FF's have a yellow or black and probie's and juniors have an orange helmet. The fire deptartment supplies you with a Cairn's 360 structural fire fighting hemlet. But if we want we can buy a New Yorker or what ever we want as long as it meets the up to date standards. god bless you all and stay safe with every thing that you get called out for.
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Permalink Reply by James Billings on
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I agree on this , thier should be a standard on helmet colors in the fire service, where I'am from white to is Chief and Asst.Chief and Captain , the Lt's wear black with white fronts and the Sr. guys also wear black but have a black on red front with thier unit number on the center panel, the probationary guys wear red helmets, and the the no it all Jr's they wear the bright yellow bullards with no fronts, and medics or ems personel has blue 880's
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Permalink Reply by ANDREW PARKS on
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i think thats our helmets are about the easiest read if you are a chief or asst chiefs you have a white helmet all other firefighters ems personnel engineers all have the yellow helmets and jr. members have red helmets
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Permalink Reply by Michael DeMasi on
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Well, every dept. I have been on the color have gone like this:
White- Cheif and Assist.
Red- Capt. and Lt.
Black- Safety Officer
Yellow- Reg. FF
In addition we had the reflective rank arches on both sides. I agree though there should be a standard.
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Permalink Reply by ASSTCHIEF173 on
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The county I live & run In I think has adopted the following;
Chief - White
Deputy Chief _ White
Asst. Chief - White
Captian - Red
Lt - Blue
Safety - Orange
FF's - Black or Yellow
EMS same as Fire except with BLUE TURNOUT GEAR
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Permalink Reply by Jacob on
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Here in Cross Lanes there are different colors for the different ranks . White ( Chief and Asst.Chief), Red( Captain and Lieutenant) and Black(FIrefighter)
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Permalink Reply by Shane on
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The county I live and work in just adopted the following:
All Chief's: White
Captains/Lt.: Red
Firefigher's: Black
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Permalink Reply by capt4021 on
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NFPA says the white should be your chiefs, red should be your capt, blue should be your lt, black firefighters, and orange for probationary. but it all depends on what your company chooses to follow. for ex. my company uses white for all line officers ex, chiefs and capt, red is our engineers, blue is our ems officers, black firefighters and orange probationary
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