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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Americans seem to take a lot of pride in their fire brigades - their fire engines are still shiny and polished with more traditional signage and the fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape.

In the United Kingdom they wear more simple uniforms and the engines are just a box shape with no bells any more - seems a shame.

Usually it's UK the has more ceremony in these kind of things.

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One of the biggest differences between Europe and North America in this regard is that in European cities, emergency vehicles have to be designed to fit a 1000-year-old city in terms of width, turning radius, maximum weight, etc. This leads to a much more compact shape and shorter wheelbase.

In North America streets are designed to fit emergency vehicles. You're not allowed to build a street so narrow that a fire engine couldn't turn around there, for example.

https://www.wired.com/story/sanfrancisco-smaller-firetrucks/

A truck being small is not incompatible with a truck being a beautiful shade of red polished to a shine. Just look at Japanese firetrucks. They have some very small trucks that look great.

You should see some streets in San Francisco. No way that a fire engine is fitting on those.

The narrowest street in San Francisco is roughly a regular European street. This[1] is par for the course on most European cities, while San Francisco has very few streets narrower than this[2] (and the average is probably wider, if you look anywhere westwards of Park Presidio where theoretically two way streets are wide enough for traffic to continue flowing in both direction even with double parked trucks.

I would also point out that I'd prefer narrower streets in SF[3].

[1]: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-narrow-san-francisco-...

[2]: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7998615,-122.4141133,3a,75y,...

[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/08/san-francisco...

Just as a side point... A lot of architects like this idea from an aesthetic or architectural-sociological reasons.

Living in em.. these as houses don't give you a lot of privacy. People walk by, less than a meter from where you're sitting. They sometimes stop to look at your TV.

You get used to it, but it's not the kind of thing people go looking for on purpose.

Put stores or offices in the ground floor. Or have a raised ground floor.

Or just embrace it, like the Dutch do[0].

[0]: https://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2010/11/24/no-8-not-owning-...

I like the half basements, but they have their issues: http://copenhagenbydesign.com/blog/2015/5/21/half-up-and-hal...

They do, they have the trucks were the rear wheels can turn as well

Every time I see them I still think being the rear driver of a ladder truck is the best job ever.

You have your own cabin, you wear a headset. And you only work when making a turn.

Honestly, from quickly looking at some images of UK firefighters, it seems the difference to me is that their equipment is modern, an not just in a design sense. Their helmets look better designed to protect the user and their fire engines look like they weren't purchased in the 70's.

So maybe the difference is that in the UK, they don't have to use old equipment

Maybe I'm not looking at the right pictures, because a quick Google Images search for "uk firefighters" and "us firefighters", I see no functional difference in what they're wearing, and the only difference in the firetrucks is that American firetrucks are massive bricks and UK firetrucks are either a European-style truck that looks basically the same as a US-style truck or are a Ford Transit van with some hoses.

The helmets look exactly the same except the ones in the UK don't have brims on the back.

They keep the engines shiny for multiple reasons. First, what else are you going to make the rookies do? ;-) Actually, keeping them shinny requires someone to pretty much go over every inch of the truck which is also a great time to do an inspection of the truck. Finding out something needs attention while sitting idle in the station is much better than finding out while out on response.

You should see the fire engines in mountain towns. They look like monster trucks.

Does each town fund and buy their own? Maybe that leads to more pride and respect for the equipment.

yes - in many American small towns there is a what's often called a fire district that levies a small tax (often a property tax)that funds the fire department (which typically a volunteer force)

I'm not sure about local funding (I think there's a certain amount of state and county funding as well). I'm sure that differs for each one. They also often staff the fire department with local volunteers. I have a couple uncles that did this for years in a very small town (~600 people). The fire department was mostly used for preventing/stopping wildfires in the surrounding area (which occur fairly often). When I've visited in the past they would give us tours. They had mostly military vehicles which could make it over the terrain (the gama goat was pretty interesting) and a regular engine (which I believe was a hand-me-down from another city). They were proud of what they were doing there to help protect the community.

guessing this also has to do with the fact that most American homes are single-family wood framed structures, so the relative importance to people is perhaps higher.

> the fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape.

The helmets are practical. They're basically construction hard hats with a rain brim.

I didn't say they weren't practical.

I mean, why would the shape change?

I don't know - I'm not in charge of the design of fire helmets in the UK am I. I just know they changed and it's a shame it's not the iconic old design we had.

I'm pretty sure that was a rhetorical question.

This is a weird statement. Do you also find it's a shame airplanes are no longer the iconic tail dragger with huge propellers?

Iconic british firefighter helmet use to be leather than metal. There are very good reason why they have been changed. The wikipedia page explains the differences over time and culture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighter%27s_helmet

Yes, since the tasks and material change.

Modern materials are lighter and more stable, thus need less material, which gives more flexibility to move.

Also the tasks changed. These days there are less fires, but more kinds of "technical assistance" and when there is fire water usage is more targeted and restricted.

Because you can always improve on a design.

Here's the modern helmet maker for the UK fire services: http://www.rosenbauer.co.uk/equipment/helmets/

InnoGraft.

Not really. Most firefighters in the US are volunteer, so not enough pride to pay people to do it.

In big cities, it's more of an internal camaraderie thing. They live together, cook together, shop together, etc. A lot prefer being at the station with their 'brothers' to being at home.

Many volunteer firefighters are just as well provisioned and with as many amenities as fully paid ones, at least in many suburbs.

Most firefighters in the US are volunteer, so not enough pride to pay people to do it.

Having a volunteer fire department does not mean there isn't pride.

In fact, it can be argued the opposite -- Volunteer departments mean the citizens take enough pride in their brigade that they get directly involved in it, rather than farming it out as a civil service.

I think there is a big difference between the pride of individual being a firefighter (many people feel this and are willing to take the job with no pay or benefits even though firefighters are at risk for a whole range of occupational induced diseases) and the pride a community feels for an organization and their willingness to support them.

Some communities simply can’t afford to pay a fire brigade, hence a volunteer squad where everyone chips in.

They can pay for it. They just don't want to increase taxes.

The tax base just isn't there sometimes. I've seen community budgets where everyone is hanging on by a thread. Not quite as bad as Native American reservations, but up there.

Sure, many communities have that problem. But I think there are at least some where that would not be the case anymore if they raised their tax rates.

There are plenty of communities in America that have professional fire departments. Particularly cities where there is actually a tax base to support it. You'll find volunteer fire departments in pretty much any working class town where the manpower is capable and willing but the money is lacking.

Yes, I am aware. But, again, the money is lacking in part because there is no will to raise taxes.

Absolutely. Look at Long Island, NY. There are a number of communities with the wealth to transition to professional fire brigades, but the property taxes are already high and the political leanings run conservative.

For most small towns I think its more the fact that a fire is a pretty rare occurrence (a couple call outs a year with a major fire every few years) so its more of a cost/benefit decision - they're willing to add ~5 min to the response time for a rare event in order to deploy $1m+/year to other higher priority areas

In the UK the majority of firefighters are on retainers, and will spend a few hours a week training, but otherwise just rely on pagers. They're paid a few thousand per year plus hourly and callout rates.

Which is the model for volunteer firefighters in the US (minus the hourly compensation/annual stipend) otherwise its essentially the same.

Around here, the state government subsidizes volunteer companies for equipment and facilities, and the fire district can bond with public votes that attract fewer voters than school board elections. My dad lives in a town with 250 annual callouts, a $10M firehouse and two $300k fire engines.

In the city that I live in a few miles away with a paid department, the firehouse next door does like 6,000 calls a year with a 2005 truck with 200k miles on it.

Volunteer firemen in the US certainly do get paid, or at least reimbursed. They're not working for free. And places with volunteer fire departments aren't volunteer because there's no pride, they're volunteer because there aren't enough fires to warrant paying people full-time to sit around doing nothing. They're on-call, and they get paid to respond to fires. In the meantime, they go to their normal job that also pays them money.

I think you are overgeneralizing. In the two places I'm familiar with, rural North Carolina and rural Wisconsin, "volunteer firemen" are truly unpaid volunteers. You are right that others are paid for their time, but it's not universal. Here's a Straight Dope thread that talks about the different approaches in some different places: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=658416

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