The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) is the union representing professional fire fighters and paramedics across the United States and Canada. It is organized into local affiliates, each with its own number and identity, and locals commonly order their own challenge coins.
What Is the IAFF?
The International Association of Fire Fighters represents professional fire fighters and emergency medical personnel across the United States and Canada. The organization spells its name as two words, Fire Fighters, which is worth getting right on anything that carries it.
The structure is what matters commercially. The IAFF is made up of thousands of local affiliates, each identified by a number: Local 1773, Local 149, and so on. A local corresponds to a department or a group of departments, and it operates with its own officers, its own membership and its own funds.
That number is an identity. Fire fighters refer to their local the way service members refer to their unit, and it appears on apparel, patches, station walls and coins. When a coin is ordered, the local number is usually the first element on it.
Why IAFF Locals Order Challenge Coins
Locals order coins for reasons that recur on a predictable cycle, which makes them a different kind of buyer from a one-off customer.
Charter anniversaries. A local marking twenty-five, fifty or a hundred years since its charter is the most common reason a coin gets commissioned, and it is a date that is known well in advance.
Conventions and conferences. Locals travelling to a district or international event bring coins to trade, which is a genuine coin-collecting culture within the fire service.
Retirements. A coin marking a career, often with years of service on the reverse.
Memorials. Coins are made to remember members lost in the line of duty. These are ordered with care and are usually the most important coin a local will ever commission.
Fundraisers. Coins sold to members, at events, or to the public to raise funds for a benevolent fund, a family, or a local cause.
How locals fund them matters to the conversation. A municipal department buys out of a department budget. A local buys out of dues, a fundraiser, or members’ own pockets, which puts it closer to a volunteer organization than to a city department. That affects quantity, it affects whether the coin is given or sold, and it usually means the design is approved by a committee rather than by one person. Unlimited artwork revisions matter more when that is the case.
What Is an Industrial Fire Brigade?
Not every fire department is municipal, and the coin on this page was made for one that is not.
An industrial fire brigade is a fire department run by a company to protect a specific site. Paper mills, refineries, chemical plants, airports, shipyards and ports all operate them, and they exist for two reasons a city department cannot address.
The hazards are specific. A pulp mill has combustible dust, chemical recovery systems and processes a municipal department will not have trained on. A refinery has its own physics. A brigade staffed on site knows the plant, the systems and the shutdown procedures because they work there.
Response time is measured differently. A municipal engine arriving in six minutes is good performance. On an industrial site, six minutes can be the difference between an incident and a shutdown, so the brigade is already inside the fence.
Industrial brigades often hold mutual aid agreements with neighbouring municipal departments, running both ways, and their members can be IAFF-affiliated like any other professional fire fighter.
It is an entirely unserved category in this market. We have produced coins for more than one of them, including an oil and gas company’s fire brigade alongside the mill brigade shown here, and for municipal fire department coins across the country.
What Goes on a Fire Department Challenge Coin?
Fire service design vocabulary is settled and highly recognizable, which is both an advantage and a constraint.
The Maltese cross is the central device on most designs, carrying the department or local name around it. Local numbers, station and company identifiers, and district designations do the identifying work. Apparatus appears frequently, particularly where a department is proud of a specific rig. The IAFF emblem is used where the local is authorized to use it.
Mottos, charter dates and anniversary years usually go on the reverse.
Finish is where fire coins differ most from military ones. Antique and brushed treatments dominate, because fire service imagery is already old and a bright polished finish fights against it. A coin that looks like it has been carried for thirty years suits this audience in a way a jewelry finish does not. You can see the range across our custom firefighter challenge coins.
About This Fire Department Coin
This coin was made for the fire department at Clearwater Paper, a pulp and paper manufacturer whose mill fire crew protected the plant and held mutual aid agreements with the surrounding municipal departments.
The brief was for something timeless, and three decisions delivered it.
Copper-colored base metal, brushed for a burnt effect. Copper reads older than gold or silver before anything else happens to it, and brushing removes the reflectivity that makes a coin look new. The result suggests age rather than imitating it.
Emblems engraved rather than printed. Engraving sits in the metal instead of on top of it, so the detail belongs to the surface. On a coin meant to look aged, anything applied to the face works against the effect.
Only two colors of paint across the whole design. This is the decision that holds the other two together. Color is what makes a coin look manufactured, so restricting it to two lets the metal carry the piece while the color does only what it has to.
None of that is expensive or complicated. An antique appearance comes from restraint and finish choice rather than from added detail, which is worth knowing before you brief a design, because the instinct is usually to add rather than remove.
Design a Coin for Your Local or Department
Artwork is free and revisions are unlimited, which matters when a design has to go back to an executive board or a committee more than once. You receive a digital proof and nothing goes into production until it is approved.
Orders start at 50 coins, shipping within the continental United States is included, and most orders are complete in 45 to 50 days after artwork approval. Rush production is available if you are working to a charter anniversary, a convention date or a memorial service.
Embleholics is veteran-owned, based in Port Orchard, Washington, and registered in SAM as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business under UEI F3AGRUW5RT53. Request a quote and you will hear back within 24 hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the IAFF?
The International Association of Fire Fighters is the union representing professional fire fighters and emergency medical personnel across the United States and Canada. It is made up of thousands of local affiliates, each with its own number.
What is an IAFF local?
An IAFF local is an affiliated chapter of the union, identified by a number such as Local 1773. A local usually corresponds to one department, with its own officers, membership and funds.
Can an IAFF local order its own challenge coins?
Yes. Locals commonly order coins for charter anniversaries, conventions, retirements, memorials and fundraisers. The local number is usually the primary element in the design, and the minimum order is 50 coins.
What is an industrial fire brigade?
An industrial fire brigade is a fire department run by a company to protect a specific site, such as a paper mill, refinery, chemical plant, airport or shipyard. Brigades exist because the hazards and response times differ from municipal firefighting.
Do plant and refinery fire departments order challenge coins?
Yes. Industrial brigades order coins for the same reasons municipal departments do, including anniversaries, retirements and recognition. The coin on this page was made for a paper mill’s fire department.
What goes on a fire department challenge coin?
The Maltese cross, department and local names, local numbers, station and company identifiers, apparatus, the IAFF emblem where authorized, mottos and charter dates. Antique and brushed finishes are more common than bright polished ones.
Can we use the IAFF emblem on a coin?
Emblems and insignia are protected, and use requires authorization from the organization. Most orders are placed by the local itself, so approval is an internal step. We work from artwork the customer is authorized to supply.
What is an antique or brushed finish?
An antique finish darkens the plating and then polishes the raised surfaces back, leaving shadow in the recesses. Brushing removes reflectivity from the metal. Both make a coin read as older, and they work well together.
What is the minimum order?
The minimum order on coins is 50. Most orders are complete in 45 to 50 days after artwork approval, and rush production is available if you are working to an anniversary, a convention or a memorial service.
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