Color of helmets

There is a big controversy brewing in my department. As it is right now I company officer position titles are Sergeant and Captain. Every station has a station Captain on one shift, the two other shifts are run by a Sergeant. Captians have white helmets and Sergeants have red helmets. The department is getting ready to change this and put Captains in red helmets as they should be, and put Sergeants back in black helmets with a red leather front to distinguish them from firefighters. I am a Sergeant and I personally do not care what color my helmet is as long as the department pays for this one since they want to change it but some of our Sergeants are infuraited and I believe it is going to be a big issue and a sore subject for awhile? What do you all think about it? What color scheme does your department use? Do you think the issue is as small as I do? There are many department out there that operate the same way, if you work in a department where everyone's helmet is virtually the same color does that cause you a problem?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Fred Cummings, Jr. on October 23, 2009 at 5:10pm
Our dept. runs with:

White - Chief, Asst Chief, Dep. Chief - with different shield
Red - Captains, Lieutenants - with different shields
Yellow - Interior FF's
Black - Exterior FF's, Motor Pump Operators
Orange - Provisionals
Green - Safety
Permalink Reply by Craig Prusansky on January 23, 2010 at 1:26pm
Greetings,
Our department made a large change from "modern" style helmets to "traditional" style helmets. Here is what we use to have:
Firefighter, Paramedic, Driver: Yellow with rank rocker
Lieutenant, Station Captain, EMS Captain: Red with rank rocker
District Chief and above: White with rank rocker
Explorer: Black

Once we switched to "traditional", here is the new scheme:
Firefighter, Paramedic, Driver: Black with yellow tetrahedrons, black front shield
Lieutenant: Black with red tetrahedrons and a blue horizontal reflector under the tetrahedron, white front shield
Station Captain: Black with red tetrahedrons, white front shield
EMS Captain: Black with red tetrahedrons and a white horizontal reflector under the tetrahedron, white front shield.
District Chief and above: White with yellow tetrahedrons, white front shield.

We have not noticed any problems with switching the colors because generally everyone knows their crew, and if it is that large of an incident, the guy with the white helmet is in charge.

Capt. Craig Prusansky
Palm Beach County (FL) Fire-Rescue
Permalink Reply by Clint Hugh Barrett on February 16, 2010 at 6:01am
We in SA have the same problem. So we only use yelow and white helmets. firefighters have yelow helmets. S firefighters yelow with 1 stripe, leadings White, and station officer white with 1 stripe. chief white with 2 stripes.
Permalink Reply by Alexander Knowlton Rogers on March 30, 2010 at 2:33pm
I'm on a volunteer department with some who just want to do medical, such as rehab on structure fires, or doing car accidents, etc. this works for us because we have plenty of people who want to go inside and fight the fire. We also have different helmet schemes for structure helmets and wildland helmets
structural
Chief officers-white
Captains, Lieutenants-red
Firefighters, Engineers-yellow
medical personell-blue
cadets-black

and for wildland it is assigned based on training, regardless of rank
anyone who has their red card-red
anyone who doesn't have a red card-yellow
Permalink Reply by Smith on July 30, 2010 at 5:52pm
In my department the entire county runs as listed.

Chiefs Officer's -White
Capt. - Red
Lt. - Blue
Serg. - Black with font ID
Fireman - Black
Probie - yellow


The county we run with mutal aid all offices are white form the chief down to the last Lt.

But like the other guys said wreally what does it matter as long as the job gets done and everyone gets back alive. Hope things don't get to bad over a small issuse like this.
Permalink Reply by Angel Tracey on January 26, 2011 at 8:37pm
we all know it's not the color of the helmet that makes us the officers that we are...it takes..Pride, Duty and Tradition..these are three words that i live by everyday, just because my helmet is red, it doesn't mean that those three things are any different than the guys/gals that are wear yellow, red or white..I've always said, " You wear the helmet, don't let the helmet wear you."

at our house these are the helmets..

AC/Chief-White..1290 and 1291
Captain-Red..1292
Lietenants-Red..1293, 1294 and 1295
Fire Fighter-Yellow
Cadets-Black (cadets are same as explorers)
Permalink Reply by Bekks on February 10, 2011 at 7:54pm
I think that is a good solution but if they have some attachment to their red helmet, they should level up to Captain (if they can) but the red front sounds like a good solution.

In MY department it's kinda simple:

Chiefs: White
Captains: Red
Firefighters: Yellow

The one FD that covered the area I used to be a medic in (back in the day) had captains in yellow ("almost a white helmet" I suppose) and all their FF's in red helmets... messed me up the first time I had fire attend a medical call as back-up... "man, what's with all the captains???!!!??") as they were the only department around that did that.

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