State and federal action needed on spiraling fire truck costs

If you had $10,000 for every time the word unsustainable was used during last week’s meeting of the Medford Area Fire Commission, you would have enough to purchase a decent home in the community, but only a fraction of what would be needed to purchase a new fire truck.

Firefighting vehicles and equipment have nearly doubled in price in recent years and the increases aren’t expected to slow down anytime soon. Medford fire commission members have been told by manufacturers to expect to pay $1 million to replace a standard fire engine in five years, about twice what the price was five years ago.

There are plenty of scapegoats when it comes to the rapid and ongoing increases. Manufacturers give excuses such as having to meet changing emission standards or increases in materials costs and labor. While these are definitely factors in driving up costs, the same factors impact all heavy vehicle manufacturers, which have not experienced such rapid and sustained increases.

Conflating these increases are long delays from when vehicles are ordered to when they are delivered. This pushes government entities to secure their place in line rather than having the flexibility to shop for the best values.

The Medford Area Fire Department typically looks to replace equipment after 30 years of service, which works out to replacing a piece of equipment about every five years. Currently, the fire commission sets aside $90,000 a year with the goal of having enough saved up to purchase a new truck, engine or pumper without having to do financing. With Madison imposing tight limits on how much towns, cities and villages can raise their taxes, in order to put more into the truck replacement fund, local governments are caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place. Some, like Medford town chairman Stan Schmitt, note the only option without borrowing is to take money from road projects, which is likewise unsustainable.

Scapegoats and justifications for price increases and delays aside, the core reason for the outrageous increase in prices for firefighting vehicles and equipment boils down to consolidation and greed.

As recently reported in the International Fire & Safety Journal, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) and the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP) have called the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate three fire truck manufacturers over claims of anticompetitive behavior with just three firms controlling 2/3 of the market. Feeding the greed has been a federal government gravy train of grants and assistance programs that have in recent years propped up the unsustainable industry increases. The gravy train has come to an end as pandemic-era relief programs have expired and the current administration is focusing more on making cuts than investing in new programs.

The real risk is that unless something is done at the state and national level to address the lack of competition and greeddriven increases in cost, communities will simply be unable to afford to replace equipment. Aging equipment has a higher rate of failure and chance of being out of service for repair or maintenance.

A pumper truck that is broken down on the side of the road or in the shop with its pump being overhauled is less than useless when it comes to a barn fire. Lives and property are on the line every time the firefighting vehicles roll out of the garage bays.

Taxpayers must call on members of Congress to take action to address the unsustainable increases in costs for life and property saving equipment no longer being funded by the federal or state governments.