Kauai Fire Department keeps red engines, unlike yellow trucks on other islands

Kauai’s fire engines still roll out in red while Maui, Hawaii Island and Oahu have largely gone with bright yellow, a visual difference that reflects how each county runs its own fire department. There is no statewide rule forcing one color across Hawaii, so Kauai County has kept the traditional red look even as other islands chose high-visibility paint for their fleets.

Chief Michael Gibson’s department sits at the center of that local choice. Kauai County’s fire department says it protects life, property and the environment, and its apparatus system is clearly built as a county-specific operation, not a standardized statewide fleet. The county lists eight stations in Hanalei, Kaiākea, Kapaa, Līhue, Kōloa, Kalāheo, Hanapēpē and Waimea, with equipment ranging from Engine 1, a 1,250-gallon-per-minute unit with a 400-gallon tank, to Tanker 5, which pumps 756 gallons per minute and carries 2,000 gallons of water.

So does the color choice actually make a difference in an emergency? On visibility alone, yes, especially in bright sun, low light and nighttime conditions. Fire-safety research cited in KHON2’s May 4 report found that yellow and lime green stand out more than red, and that Hawaii’s strong sunlight can make red blend into roads, buildings or the sky. That is why Maui, Hawaii Island and Oahu shifted toward yellow.

Kauai, though, has kept red because of history as much as operations. The KHON2 report noted that red has a long firefighting tradition in the United States, when red paint was common and gradually became a symbol of fire service. On Kauai, that tradition has remained part of the department’s identity even as safety studies pushed other islands in a different direction.

The county has also shown that red is still a deliberate local choice in other emergency vehicles. In 2019, the Kauai Fire Department’s Ocean Safety Bureau received two bright red Ford F-150 trucks with yellow Ocean Safety Bureau decals, a reminder that the island’s emergency fleet has not abandoned red altogether. For Kauai, the color is part of a local system that balances visibility, budget, tradition and the realities of a county-run department serving an island with its own stations, its own apparatus and its own operational decisions.