I did some searching and didn't find any current posts on this specific topic - please forgive me if I just happened to miss one.
Hopefully some qualified, experienced (I am neither) members here can help you, but I think if you search on Google you'll find plenty of ideas on firefighting-specific forums. In addition, not all of the information in the Similar Threads area below is necessarily outdated, especially if you're shying away from LED flashlights.
I have a good friend that just got through Firefighter Academy and wants to get a nice flashlight he can mount to his helmet. They issue very cheap ones at his department.
To provide a baseline, what make and model are the cheap ones? For that matter, how much would your firefighter friend be willing to pay?
By the way, helmet-mounted flashlights used by firefighters tend to be relatively inexpensive because they take a lot of punishment (including melting
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and have to be replaced more often than those used in other occupations.
I'm hoping we have some Firefighter flashaholics here on CPF that can give me some job specific recommendations/advice I can forward on to him.
I'm not a firefighter, but I can tell you based on my reading which types of flashlights are well-liked among them. In general, it sure seems that 4xAA format plastic flashlights (plastic can melt but on the other hand it helps protect the batteries better than metal) putting out 30-50 lumens and running for 3-5 hours is at the "sweet spot" for many, if not most, and several companies manufacture such products that are specifically designed for firefighting and other duties in hazardous areas.
Obviously he'll need a light that will function well in smoke and in high heat situations. I hesitate to ignorantly recommend LED based lights because of those two reasons.
You may be surprised at how popular LED-based flashlights are among firefighters these days, probably because they're brighter, run for longer, have a smoother beam pattern, and are more dependable in terms of not suddenly burning out due to short bulb life (a major issue with small incandescent bulbs that are used a lot). Some say that all flashlights are useless in heavy smoke, so they want a bright light and wide beam for whenever flashlights can be used, while others are convinced that incandescent (it's too bad that manufacturers don't appear to be using warm white LEDs in these products yet) and/or narrowly focused flashlights can penetrate smoke to a useful degree.
I couldn't tell you what the truth really is, although I can give you some examples of certified products that use incandescent bulbs if your friend would be more comfortable with them:
Streamlight ProPolymer 4AA (ATEX) - 34 lumens, 4 hours
Pelican StealthLite 2400 - 45 lumens, 3.75 hours
Underwater Kinetics UK4AA - 38 lumens, 4-5 hours
There are LED versions of these flashlights as well, which are advertised as having highly-collimated beams that help penetrate smoke (can't verify this myself):
Pelican StealthLite 2410 Recoil - 72 lumens, 7.25 hours
Underwater Kinetics UK4AA eLED CPO Front Switch - 120 lumens, 4-5 hours
Underwater Kinetics UK4AA eLED CPO Tail Switch - 120 lumens, 4-5 hours
The
Streamlight ProPolymer LUX (ATEX) (42 lumens, 4 hours regulated, 2 hours declining) is similar to these flashlights and seems to be rather popular for this type of duty, but Streamlight doesn't make any claims of using special optics to help penetrate smoke, so I didn't know if you'd be interested, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Its reflector appears to be quite deep, however, making for a tighter overall beam, and in fact it has greater hotspot intensity than the other LED flashlights despite its modest output, for what it's worth.
Streamlight also makes an interesting compact LED-based helmet-mounted light that is apparently based on their TLR-series weapon lights (very tough), the
Streamlight Vantage (100 lumens, 4.5 hours regulated, 1.5 hours declining). Likewise they don't claim to use any special optics, but the reflector is deep and the hotspot is narrow and fairly intense (also has a high-brightness blue LED taillight so that others can better see where you are from behind, I guess). It's probably not what you're looking for, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention.