General Information

Serial #

N/A

Part Number

1

Total Parts

2

AKA

shoulder flash

Patents

N/A

General Description

fabric & embroidery thread

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

11.3 cm

Width

10.2 cm

Height

N/A

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Forestry

Category

Fire fighting

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Unknown

Country

Unknown

State/Province

Unknown

City

Unknown

Context

Country

Canada

State/Province

Alberta

Period

Unknown

Canada

Uniform identification badges used by Canadian forestry and forest fire fighting personnel, specifically of Alberta. This is the insignia of helitack firefighters. Helitack is defined as the initial attack on wildfires involving the use of helicopters & trained crews, deployed as a complete unit. The crews are specially trained in the tactical & logistical use of helicopters for fire suppression (Ref. 3).

Function

Identifying patches worn on the uniforms of provincial fire fighting personnel, affixed to a shirt or jacket.

Technical

An example of a machine embroidered fabric badge. For centuries embroidery hand been done by hand, but during the industrial revolution mechanization of the process began. Embroidery machines were designed by 1860, combining in a single machine handloom technology with the existing sewing machine technology, the lock-stitch. The automation was refined in the in the 1970s - early 1980s with automatic, electronically controlled custom embroidered machines developed in Japan. Instead of the instructions being coded on a continuous reel of paper or Mylar(r) tape containing x-y coordinate information in Binary, Fortran or other numeric code to control pantograph movement, the information is now digitized on computer disks. These machines also do the work flat instead of vertically which allows automatic colour changes (Ref. 1).

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

embroidered lettering reads "ALBERTA HELITACK/ FOREST PROTECTION"

Missing

complete

Finish

grey, black, green, yellow, blue, orange

Decoration

yellow embroidered helicopter carrying water container & dousing fire/ black edging