Nationwide fire truck shortage impacting Mass. departments. IAFF asks for investigation.
The Quincy Fire Department secured funding for new fire trucks in 2022, but now three years later they still don't have them. Manufacturing delays are forcing them to buy used trucks from other cities. Now, the International Association of Firefighters is asking the U.S. government to step in and investigate the companies who build the vehicles.
"We are waiting on an engine and a ladder right now, and it has been three and a half years," said Quincy Fire Chief Joe Jackson. "The build times to actually get these trucks built has quadrupled. It's a huge problem being able to plan. Some of these trucks that I'm ordering now, are likely to be received by another fire chief, and I think about that, and it's so weird."
Constant maintenance on old trucks
The fire department has some trucks in service that are more than 20-years-old. They are only able to keep them in service because they have two maintenance workers who constantly work on them. This is only made possible because car dealer Dan Quirk donated the department a large maintenance space on his property. Without the space, Chief Jackson says they wouldn't be able to keep this going.
"Most communities have to send their apparatus to the dealership to be worked on," explains Chief Jackson. "If one of these old trucks needs a radiator that's $10,000. That's ten-grand on a 30-year-old truck, and you have no choice."
"This is a 2003, so we are looking at 25-years-old right now," said maintenance worker Kevin Mellor, pointing to a truck he's working on. "After a certain time, to be compliant with the NFPA standards, after 20 years the truck should go into a reserve."
Increased cost of fire trucks
The department bought one of their trucks 10 years ago for $900,000. Their latest ones cost $2 million with a potential 4-year wait time to get.
"Prior to COVID, it was 10 months for an engine, 12 months with a ladder," explained Chief Jackson.
The chief says there are only a few major companies that manufacture fire trucks. He says those companies tell him the delays are due to global supply issues, increased costs, and a struggle to find workers at the factories.
The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) says the lack of competition in the fire truck marketplace has led to billions of dollars in backlogged trucks from around the globe.
"We contacted the Department of Justice and the FTC to investigate this, and to make sure that what is happening can either be halted or mitigated," said Jay Colbert with IAFF.
The IAFF is now asking for firefighter unions to contribute their stories on delays to a .
Spike in demand, labor shortage
Chief Jackson and Colbert say there are three large companies who manufacture the majority of the trucks. WBZ reached out to all three, with one of them, the REV Group, getting back to us about the delays. They gave WBZ this statement.
"An unprecedented spike in demand and ongoing skilled labor shortages have contributed to increased costs and delivery times across the industry," said a spokesperson for the REV Group, "We take our responsibility to deliver for America's first responders seriously and have increased our fire and emergency vehicle production by nearly 30% in the last two years, and developed new lines of semi-custom trucks that deliver in under a year."
The company says they also do not use dynamic or floating pricing. Once they agree on a price with a fire department, they stick to that price even if the costs to build increase before it's built. REV Group says data from the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association shows that fire truck demand from 2011-2020 increased by 43% from 2021 to 2023.
