They have inspired the saying 'fire engine red', but in Canberra the fire trucks are a very different colour.

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Shane Brinsmead moved to Canberra 16 years ago and noticed a few things that were different in the capital.

"Lots of roundabouts and these fire trucks just really stuck out," he said.

Shane wanted to know why the territory's fire engines were yellow and not red like the rest of Australia, and most of the world.

Surprisingly, the answer has quite a bit of science behind it.



Bucking the trend



Fire engines are various colours around the world, even pink. ( Flickr )

The debate about what colour a fire engine should be is one that has been had many times around the world.

All the research points to the fact that bright or fluorescent colours are more visible, especially in low light conditions and at night.

Overseas, bright can mean anything from pink, green, orange or even bright blue.

In Australia, there are white rural fire service trucks and most aviation fire and rescue vehicles are a shade of yellow too.

However, every official state and territory fire engine is red or red and white.

That is, except for the ACT.

I spoke to Phil Canham, the Acting Chief Fire Officer of ACT Fire and Rescue, and asked him whether the fire engines were yellow or lime green?

"We call them lime green," he said.

"It's actually a registered paint colour to the ACT Fire and Rescue.

But Canberra's fire engines have not always been this colour.



Making the switch



The fire engines were a mix of red and white in the ACT before they became lime green. ( ABC News: Georgia Hitch )

I visited the Canberra Fire Museum to find out more about the history of the city's fire engines.

I spoke to retired firefighters Ron Hourigan and Wayne Berry who explained why fire engines were red to begin with.

They said when the engines were first created, red was an expensive paint colour and was quite uncommon, meaning the engines stood out in traffic.

Acting Chief Officer Canham said the choice of lime green nowadays has the same kind of effect as red once did.

"There aren't too many bright lime green vehicles on the roads these days," he said.

The other major factor is that research done in Australia in the 1970s and early 1980s found that bright green or yellow colours are the most visible at night.

The first Canberra fire engine to be painted lime green in the 1980s. ( ABC News: Georgia Hitch )

Despite the research all other states and territories kept their red engines, except for the ACT.

The territory made the switch over a few years in the 1980s, and had a full fleet of lime green engines by 1986.

Mr Hourigan told me that at first, the colour change was not welcome.

"Being a traditionalist when I first heard (about the colour change) I was horrified," he said.

"What they did was take one of the trucks that was due for ... a refit and paint it yellow, that was the trial and when I saw it I was pleasantly surprised and thought well what a good idea."



The science behind the colour



Dr Mark Edwards says the cells in our eyes are more sensitive to the lime green, especially at night. ( ABC News: Mark Moore )

I wanted to know if there was a scientific reason why the colour yellow stood out more at night.

Dr Mark Edwards is an associate professor at the Australian National University's school of psychology.

He explained that we have two different types of cells that are sensitive to light and help us see - cones for colours and rods for brightness.

Biologically we are more attuned to seeing blue and green at night.

"By having red fire engines, that's great in the day time conditions because our cones can see that in a vivid way, but in low light conditions or twilight conditions the rods are just insensitive to red fire engines," he said.

"Whereas if it's a lime green fire engine, that's in the sweet spot of the sensitivity of the rods so that will then feed into our sense of brightness and it'll just be a lot more easy to see those lime green fire trucks."

He said the fact that people may not be used to seeing lime green engines shouldn't be problematic.

"You'll still see it, but it may take you a little longer to realise it's a fire engine.

"Of course it's got flashing lights and a siren, so you'd know it'd be a good idea to get out of it's way.

"But in terms of detecting it, it (the colour) will have no impact on your ability to detect it."



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