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Fire and Rescue Department (Malaysia)

Jabatan Bomba dan Penyelamat Malaysia

1:2 image by Clay Moss, 15 January 2006

Description

See also:

Description

A diagonally divided flag from bottom hoist to upper fly. The top hoist is red with a yellow arms or badge, the bottom fly has 15 blue-yellow stripes.
Santiago Dotor, 23 May 2003

This is the Service Flag of the Jabatan Bomba dan Penyelamat Malaysia or Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department. From the Department's website, I have provided a general translation of both the flag and logo:

The flag of the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department is comprised of two parts; an upper red triangle with the department logo and the other lower triangular half comprising of 15 yellow and blue stripes. Red represents the courageous spirit of the personnel in their course of duty of fire fighting and rescue for the nation. The 15 stripes represent the 15 states and territories in which the department operates.
Yellow stripes represent a quality service (a golden service) provided to their customers and stakeholders in their attempts to achieve world-class standards and also reflect loyalty to His Majesty and the Nation.
Blue stripes represents the water, the primary medium used for fire-fighting and reflects the importance of the need to maintain cleanliness of the environment whenever undergoing their operations.

I believe the ratio should be 1:2, like the Malaysian national flag. The logos are in gold and black on their flags. The size of the logo on the Service Flag seems to vary from site to site. The (central) website of the Fire and Rescue Department has their logo on their Service Flag much smaller (about 4 stripes in height) while the one shown on the similar Service Flag shown on this website of the Fire and Rescue Department of the State of Johore has their logo about 7 stripes in height.

The Fire Logo
The yellow crescent and star from the Malaysian national flag surmounts the entire emblem and represents Islam and noble values, which is entrenched in the work customs of the department.
The helmet and crossed axes represents protection for the department personnel who are rendering a professional service. The paddy sheaths represent the power to enforce Act 341 and also represent the peace of the nation.
Red represents bravery, yellow represents quality service, blue represents the water; similar to the meanings attached to the department flag.

Herman Felani M.Y., 23 May 2003

The department was called the Jabatan Perkhidmatan Bomba Malaysia (roughly translated as Malaysian Fire Service Department) prior to 21st February 1997 before adopting its current name. Simultaneously, they changed their flag and logo as well. This was done together with the opening ceremony of Genting Highlands Fire Station (in the State of Selangor) by the Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohammad. This information on their history, was retrieved from this webpage (in Malay).

There are 15 stripes [on the flag] instead of 14 [of the national flag] as the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Federal Territory of Labuan are represented differently.
Herman Felani M.Y., 26 May 2003

A photo of an actual flag is available here [this flag appears to have only 13 stripes - possibly a production error?]. The emblem on this flag has changed in the last year. The old emblem had yellow ribbons at the bottom and blue lettering. The red in the flag stands for sacrifice while the gold stands for virtue and valor. The blue stands for resources, namely water which the fire department uses to put out fires. The MF&R has chosen to include Putra Jaya along with the other Malay states and Kuala Lumpur.

I had said earlier that the badge on this flag had changed slightly. I was wrong. The old badge on the flag represented only the Malaysian Fire Brigade. In the last year, the Brigade has merged with the rescue service, and thus the new look to the logo. Really, the only difference is the ribbon below. On the old flag, it was gold and "Fire Brigades" inscribed on it in Bahasa Malay. Now of course the ribbon's blue and says "Fire And Rescue".
Clay Moss, 10 January 2006

Here is another image of the firefighters (air unit) with their fire and rescue service flag from the Utusan Malaysia website (a local newspaper) - Photograph: http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/Special/aidilfitri2004/album/20041204/images/Previews/Preview1.jpg
Main article/story:
http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/special.asp?pr=aidilfitri2004&pub=aidilfitri2004&y=2004&dt=1204&sec=Album&pg=PreviewPages/PreviewPage1.htm

The photograph mentioned above was dated 23 October 2004. The flag also featured the fire and rescue service emblem in yellow throughout rather than in its full proper colours which I presume was the flag since 1997. I am unable to say when the full coloured emblem version was adopted on the service flags though nor confirm its extent of use. Several fire department websites of the various Malaysian states still display an all-yellow emblem on their 15- triped flag at their websites. I suppose this may not be the best reference since the images on the site may lack updating.
Herman Felani M.Y., 28 June 2009