Firefighting apparatus

Colonial laws in America required each house to have a bucket of water on the front stoop during fires at night.

The amount of manpower and skill necessary for firefighting prompted the institution of an organized fire company by Benjamin Franklin in 1737.

[4] Some models had the hard, suction hose fixed to the intake and curled up over the apparatus known as a squirrel tail engine.

That same year, the Knox Automobile Company of Springfield, Massachusetts began selling what some[7] have described as the world's first modern fire engine.

[8] For many years firefighters sat on the sides of the fire engines, or even stood on the rear of the vehicles, exposed to the elements.

Due to the need for firefighting apparatus to be highly visible, they are, similar to other emergency vehicles, painted in conspicuous colors, such as white, yellow, orange, or, most frequently and famously, fire engine red.

While red remains the most common color for firefighting apparatus, it is not required and depends highly on individual needs, traditions, and safety research.

[9] For example, the Chicago Fire Department has a long-standing tradition of painting their apparatus black over red, a practice that has caught on far beyond Illinois.

Most fire apparatus use retroreflective markings to increase their visibility in poor light; red and white or red and yellow chevrons on the rear are almost universal, and while most choose a more modest and arguably stylish option in simply making existing stripe patters reflective, some, particularly European fire services and especially those in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands, choose to have very large and prominent markings.

A study by the American Psychological Association published in February 2014 indicated that lime-yellow is a significantly safer color for emergency vehicles because of its increased visibility.

Fire service driving training often includes the use of different sounds depending on traffic conditions and maneuver being performed.

The "acoustic" or "air" traditional sirens are still in wide use, most notably on North American-type fire apparatus but other countries such as Japan have fitted their apparatus with these types of warning systems as well, as its overtones help the public "locate" and avoid the fire truck—the newer electronic signals disperse almost pure electronic sine wave tones, which are hard to locate, especially in city "canyons" of buildings.