Fire Station

Synonyms / Other Terms Used

Firehouse, Fire Service, Fire Brigade, Fire Department, Firefighters

Category

Public Facilities, Safety, Services

Message / Function

To indicate a fire station or a place from which the fire brigade can be called

	Source	Description
	Renner	Side view of front of fire brigade ladder truck
	Ecuador	Side view of fire truck
	Vicons Design	Side view of ladder truck
	ÖNORM A 3011	Side view of fire brigade turntable ladder truck, signal light above
1)	ON Testdesign	Side view of fire brigade ladder truck, signal light above
	GSR Portugal	Side view of fire brigade turntable ladder truck with signal light
2)	ON Testdesign	Side view of fire brigade turntable ladder truck
3)	ON Testdesign	Side view of fire brigade turntable ladder truck
	MUTCD	Side view of fire brigade ladder truck
	teracreonte	Front view of fire truck
	SVI	Side view of fire fighter with helmet holding hose
	O'72	Fire fighter with helmet holding hose
	McLaren & Braunstein	F inside circle, front view of fire fighter with helmet
	Avanti PUM	Clipped front view of fire fighter with helmet, flame, inverted V above
	EJP	Front view of head of fire fighter with helmet
	CHBA	Side view of head of fire fighter with helmet, axe
	SADC	Side view of fire fighter helmet, two axes crossed behind
	Sagamihara	180° arc, vertical line attached below

Note: Some of the examples shown above were mirrored horizontally to contrast differences.

Discussion

Besides side views of all kinds of fire brigade ladder trucks, pictograms displaying fire fighters with helmet and holding a hose are quite frequent in our collection. Also variants with other fire fighting equipment like axes can be found. We did not include various logos of fire fighting organizations, which sometimes also present some kind of activity or fire fighting equipment, frequently also in combination with flames.

In our research we discovered that there is only test data available for three pictograms of the table above:

Brugger (1992 a) inspected these pictogram variants for the message Fire Brigade or Fire Station (Feuerwehr in German) using an Appropriateness Ranking Test. The pictograms tested are labeled 1) to 3) following the ranking order based on the test results.

In a follow-up Comprehension Test (Brugger, 1992 b) 86.3 % of the responses concerning the pictogram labeled 1) could be classified as correct. Variants 2) and 3) reached 77.4 % and 80.0 % correct answers. A detailed look at the wrong answers reveals a few confusions with 'Towing Service', 'Crane Truck' and 'Construction Works'.

Means of comprehensibility estimations for these variants from a different sample were somewhat lower, ranging from 69 to 74 and differing by just 5 % between variants (Brugger, 1999).

No test data is available for the images of fire fighters with helmet and additional accessories, but we expect them not to be superior to the images tested. Logos from several fire fighting organizations neither offer convincing solutions for the intended message.

Recommendation

FireStation

Public Information Symbol No 132 of ÖNORM A 3011 part 8 was developed regarding the test results mentioned above and seems to be a good pictogram to indicate a fire station or a place from which the fire brigade can be called.

Tests of pictograms of referent Fire Station

Brugger, Ch. (1992 a): Reihungstest 1992. Report to the Austrian Standards Institute (ON) FNA 133 dated August 1992, Vienna.

Brugger, Ch. (1992 b): Verständnistest 1992. Report to the Austrian Standards Institute (ON) dated October 1992, Vienna.

Brugger, Ch. (1999): Public information symbols: a comparison of ISO testing procedures. In: Zwaga, H., Boersema, T. & Hoonhout, H. (Eds.): Visual information for everyday use. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd.