Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greenman on February 19, 2010 at 9:36am

Tony,

Thanks. It's very interesting to me to learn about the different symbols the Fire and EMS services use around the world.

Obviously there's the Red Cross/C resent/Star of David/Diamond conundrum, but there are obviously many more symbols in use out there.

I think the Maltese cross you have on the Ambulance Victoria emblem makes sense since it was the symbol of the Knights Hospitaller, who invented the concept of a hospital during the crusades.

Greenman

Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on February 19, 2010 at 12:19pm

My full time department has a no stcker policy due to some morons putting innappropriate crap on their lids. We have benslowly adding basic American flags (yes, we know it is against the flag code) since one of our own was deplyed to Iraq. Some guys have added St. Florian decals to the underside. I just added a pink ribbonon the back for my mother. If he doesn't like it, he can take it up with me.

Permalink Reply by Padre Pete on February 19, 2010 at 1:06pm

Now that Im no longer figting fire, I have a reflective white cross on the back of my helmet. Makes me easy to spot as a chaplain. I always fgured stick-ons were proof that a helmet hadnt seen much heat and I wouln't have wanted anyone assuming that. Padre

Permalink Reply by Lani on February 19, 2010 at 1:09pm

I have a "Never Forget" 9/11 sticker on my helmet...that is it so far. I plan on adding a star of life now that I have passed my NREMT.

Permalink Reply by lutan1 on February 19, 2010 at 2:17pm

btw, EMS does not use the maltese cross...we use the "Star of Life".
Our Ambulance Service here in Victoria, Australia does.

Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on February 19, 2010 at 3:50pm

lutan1 - do you have non-emergency ambulances?

Permalink Reply by Perry Bryant on February 19, 2010 at 4:13pm

A Deuces wild ( we are company 2) sticker we made custom
its got flames behind all the aces of spades-diamonds-hearts-etc

says deuces wild


a 343 sticker
lots of scotchlite

Permalink Reply by Robert Owens on February 19, 2010 at 6:24pm

All I have is my company number on the back.....Real Firefighters dont need to advertise.

Permalink Reply by lutan1 on February 20, 2010 at 1:27am

We do.

Some are run by the State funded provider (Ambulance Service Victoria) and many others are privately contracted.

Permalink Reply by John Maynard on February 20, 2010 at 5:28am

I replaced my "factory" chartruese tetrahedrons with reflective camoflauge ones and I have my last name in reflective white on the back of my helmet.Gonna add a refelctive shamrock shortly and looking at the new black jack flashlight mounts too.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Halverson on February 20, 2010 at 8:13am

We're issued a Cairns 990 with factory tets (that I need to replace, they're peeling off) Explorer rockers, a front shield that has our department name and Explorer on it, and ESS goggles. I've added a streamlight helmet band with a Streamlight propolymer 2AA LED, works great so far, I'm trying to save money for the Vantage.

Permalink Reply by Greenman on February 20, 2010 at 9:14am

That's one difference between how we do it in the U.S. and how many other countries do things: in the U.S. everything is done at the local level, whereas in many other countries Fire and Ambulances services are run at the provincial or state level.

All of our Fire Departments are owned, managed and paid for at the county, city, town or district level. Where we do have Federal or State Fire Services, they only cover Federal or State lands, except for mutual aid.

The EMS system is even more inconsistent. Often the EMS/Ambulance service is part of the local Fire Department, but just as often it is run by a seperate EMS Agency, and about a third of the time it is run by a private EMS/Ambulance service. Sometimes the EMS units are quartered with Fire companies, and other times they have their own stations at another location.

When I've been overseas and saw Fire/EMS responses, all Emergency vehicles which arrived on-scene had the same paint schemes, the same symbols/graphics or logos, and the same safety features. By contrast in U.S. every fire Department has different paint schemes: some are white, some are red, some are chartreuse, and some are crazy colors like black, orange or purple! At any given call with multiple ambulance response you may have green ambulances, red and white ambulances, white and orange ambulances, and chartreuse and blue ambulances. Some have red lights only, some have red and blue lights, some have red, white and blue lights! Some ambulances have Red Cross symbols, some use the Star of Life and some have neither, but use a private logo which might incorporate one of them. Some have chevrons on the rear, some don't (although that should become more uniform in the next few years, there will still be holdouts who will refuse to apply chevrons).

When I was in Korea I saw that all Fire apparatus in every city and town, in every province had the same paint scheme, Firefighters wore the same stationwear in every station and there were only two ambulance paint schemes: Green on white with Green strobes (for BLS/ALS Ambulances) with a Green Cross symbol, and orange on white for "Silver Ambulances" which only responded to elder-care type calls (i.e. "I've fallen and can't get up") leaving BLS/ALS free for emergent situations.

In a Fire Service where things are uniform across the board it makes sense that uniformity extend to the individual Firefighter, but in a systems where at any mutual aid call you may see eight different paint schemes and twenty versions of the Fire Service emblem (In the U.S. each department/Company recreates the Fire Service Cross ( aka "Maltese Cross," "St. Florian's Cross," or "Firefighter Cross"), there is room for a little bit of individual variance on helmets.

Greenman

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