Fire Engine Red Color Codes
Fire Engine Red is a dark, saturated red with the hex code #CE2029, RGB values of 206, 32, 41 and an HSL value of hsl(357, 73%, 47%).
| HEX | #CE2029 |
|---|---|
| RGB | 206, 32, 41 |
| HSL | hsl(357, 73%, 47%) |
| HSV | 357°, 84%, 81% |
| CMYK | 0%, 84%, 80%, 19% |
| LAB | 44.69, 64.54, 41.21 |
| CIELCHuv | 44.69, 131.17, 11.22° |
- Nearest Pantone
- PMS 186 C ΔE 2.8 · approximate
- Nearest CSS name
-
crimsonΔE 10.2
Source Wikipedia, List of colors (cites findthedata.com)
Fire Engine Red Color Hex Code
The Fire Engine Red color hex code is #CE2029. Those six digits are three pairs, CE for red, 20 for green and 29 for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.
#CE2029
Fire Engine Red Color RGB Code
The Fire Engine Red RGB code is rgb(206, 32, 41). Red carries the most light at 206 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.
rgb(206, 32, 41)
Fire Engine Red Color HSV Code
The Fire Engine Red HSV code is 357°, 84%, 81%. Read it as a hue of 357 degrees, 84% saturation and 81% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.
357°, 84%, 81%
Fire Engine Red Color CIELChuv Code
The Fire Engine Red CIELCHuv code is 44.69, 131.17, 11.22°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 45 means mid-toned to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 131 is how far it sits from grey.
44.69, 131.17, 11.22°
Tonal scale
What are Fire Engine Red Color Palettes?
A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.
Shades, toward black
Tints, toward white
Tones, toward grey
Palettes
What are Fire Engine Red Color Palette Codes?
Each of these is a hue rotation from #CE2029. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.
Complementary
Half a turn away is #20CEC5, a light, saturated teal. This is the widest separation the wheel offers, and the reason complementary pairs are the default for anything that must stand out. Both are saturated, so give the complement much less area than the base or the two will fight.
Analogous
Either side sit #CE2080 and #CE6E20, 30 degrees out. Low tension by construction: useful when you need several related tones that still feel like one choice.
Triadic
#29CE20 and #2029CE complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.
Split-complementary
Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #20CE6E and #2080CE. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.
Tetradic
Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #20CEC5, and #80CE20 with #6E20CE. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat this base as the lead and hold the other three well back.
Accessibility
Contrast checker: is Fire Engine Red accessible?
Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.
White background
5.44:15.44
contrast ratio on white background
| Element | AA | AAA |
|---|---|---|
| Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1 | Passes | Fails |
| Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1 | Passes | Passes |
| UI component needs 3:1 | Passes | n/a |
Black background
3.86:13.86
contrast ratio on black background
| Element | AA | AAA |
|---|---|---|
| Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1 | Fails | Fails |
| Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1 | Passes | Fails |
| UI component needs 3:1 | Passes | n/a |
Fire Engine Red clears WCAG AA against white at 5.44:1, so it is safe for body copy as well as headings. Text placed on it should be white, which gives 5.44:1.
Color vision
How Fire Engine Red looks with color blindness
Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.
Protanopia
About 1% of men#A1A027
Fire Engine Red changes substantially here. ΔE 82.6
No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.
Deuteranopia
About 1% of men#A8B027
Fire Engine Red changes substantially here. ΔE 89.8
No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.
Tritanopia
About 1 in 10,000#C92525
Fire Engine Red shifts slightly here. ΔE 3.0
No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.
Achromatopsia
About 1 in 30,000#6A6A6A
Fire Engine Red changes substantially here. ΔE 76.6
No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.
To a deuteranope, the most common form, Fire Engine Red reads as #A8B027. That is a shift of ΔE 89.8, so it is a different color to roughly one man in sixteen. It sits in the red end of the spectrum, which is exactly where red-green deficiency does its damage. Never pair it with a green of similar lightness to signal a difference in meaning: to a large minority the two become one color. The widest shift is under deuteranopia, at ΔE 89.8. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.
Snippets
Using Fire Engine Red in code
:root {
--fire-engine-red: #CE2029;
}
.example {
color: var(--fire-engine-red);
}// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'fire-engine-red': '#CE2029',
},
},
}// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let fireEngineRed = Color(
red: 0.808,
green: 0.125,
blue: 0.161
)<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="fire_engine_red">#CE2029</color>// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const fireEngineRed = Color(0xFFCE2029);