Fire Engines Photos

Great truck. But I've got a question. I noticed that the flashing lights sometimes are red/blue, other states use only red. Is that a state regulation ???
And how is the use with LED lights ? In the Netherlands is it slowly become normal but for the moment still quit rare.

Added by Marcel Sloover on 22 August 2005.

The use of LEDs for emergency vehicles is becoming a common sight in western Canadian cities. They are not any brighter but they are very durable and long lasting in our cold winters. As for the different light colors I guess it depends on the fire department. There is an powerful white strobe LED mounted on the front and back of our new pumpers that is not affected by fog or heavy snow fall.

Added by Phil on 05 November 2009.

Blue is becoming more common in the US as an additional emergency light color for two reasons:

1- It is much more noticeable in darkness than red, and there are already a lot of red lights on the street, not only on vehicles, but traffic lights and illuminated signs as well.

2- Police agencies have made blue more common for some years past now, with some cities using blue only and many more police agencies combining blue and red.

In Chicago, we have not got to blue lights on fire department vehicles yet, but we do have green as well as red, plus very bright white lights, which are understood to be the most visible in bright sunlight!

Right now, emergency vehicles can have red, white, blue, green and yellow flashing lights in virtually any numbers and almost any location on the vehicle. The only limitations are restrictions imposed in each State.

For example, in New York State, volunteer fire fighters can have blue flashing lights on their personal vehicles, but not red. In Illinois, blue was permitted only on police vehicles, and so on...

As everyone will have noticed from postings on this site, it is also true that police, EMS and fire department vehicles come in virtually every color and color combination possible as well, not to mention stripes, decals and lettering designs!

Added by Rob Johnson on 23 September 2013.

interesting reply Rob, the bright white light is starting to crep in here too, but ALL emergency vehicles use blue lights, yellow lights are for utility vehicles like breakdown trucks etc. Red flashing lights are a no-no. Doctors are allowed green flashing lights but they don't have the legal status of blue lights.

Added by Colin McFarlane Foster on 24 September 2013.

When I lived in Kuwait the national EMS ambulance fleet's vehicles were festooned in green flashing lights too, but it never seemed to me to be a very good emergency color, because it is associated with green traffic lights.

Perhaps it worked in Kuwait because the locals tended not to take any notice of traffic lights anyway!

Added by Rob Johnson on 25 September 2013.

Hi to everybody!In early 70-s was the red emergency lights changed to blue!The rason from the goverment was, that "its a internationell standard"!!!Its now 44 eyrs later, and ITS NOT A INTERNATIONELL STANDARD! Take a look on the vehicles in Greece, they are Red, Spain=orange/yellow, African countrys=red or blue, R O K=Green on the ambulances! Here in Sweden, a small greenled light is mounted on the ambulances. That indicates for the other ambulance-police
and fire/rescuecrews coming to a rta, that the crew in that ambulance is in charge for the medic side.

Anders F.Sweden.


Added by Anders Fallström on 12 July 2014.

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