Fire trucks face longer waits and higher costs
Fire departments across the United States are facing delivery delays of up to five years for new apparatus as prices continue to rise.
InvestigateTV reported that the issue has become a national challenge affecting response capability, fleet management and long-term procurement planning.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, fire departments typically waited around a year for a new fire engine after placing an order.
Jason Shivers, division chief of Forsyth County Fire Department in metro Atlanta and chair of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ emergency vehicle management section, said: “Before 2020, the fire chiefs of North America could fairly accurately know how long it was going to take.”
Shivers said: “You could expect to get a fire engine in about 12 months, maybe 14, maybe 16. That was consistent for many years before the pandemic.”
Supply chain disruption slowed manufacturing, shut down plants and delayed parts shipments, pushing delivery windows from months into years.
Shivers said: “Today, unfortunately, an order may take up to four years, sometimes five years.”
Harold Theus, fire chief of Alachua County Fire Rescue in north-central Florida, said the price of a fire engine in his department rose from roughly $550,000 in 2022 to $915,000 by December 2025.
The increase represents a 64% rise over four years for equipment that has remained largely unchanged.
Shivers said the national price floor for a new pumper engine is now at least $1 million.
Theus said: “I keep thinking we’ve hit the ceiling. I don’t know where the ceiling is. For the taxpayer, it needs to be soon.”
Why delays in fire trucks orders have grown
InvestigateTV reported that fire service leaders said the backlog has worsened as departments placed extra orders to secure production slots.
As delivery timelines stretched, many departments tried to get ahead of longer waits by ordering earlier or ordering more than they once would have.
Shivers said: “The chiefs of America have been part of the problem.
“The natural reaction was to say, ‘If I’ve got to wait that long, maybe I need to double that order.
“Maybe I need to triple that order.’”
Shivers said: “It’s cyclical. And we’ve aggravated the problem because of the number of orders we’ve tried to put in to get ahead of the next guy.”
Industry leaders also said the custom-build model for fire apparatus has slowed production.
Fire engines are often built to the specifications of individual departments rather than produced through a standardised assembly process.
Shivers said: “Firefighters hate two things: change and the way things are.
“We are very, very stuck in the tradition of the fire service. We are very proud of being stuck in the tradition of the fire service.”
Some departments are now purchasing stock vehicles or demonstration units through dealer allocations to shorten delivery timelines.
Forsyth County has used that approach for trucks, and Alachua County Fire Rescue bought seven stock ambulances with a 12-month delivery timeline.
Theus said: “We did have to give some things up. We were in a situation where we didn’t have enough ambulances on the road.”
Older fleets stay in service as parts remain hard to source
InvestigateTV also reported that departments are facing shortages of replacement parts for existing vehicles, leaving some apparatus out of service.
Keith Durden, a fire apparatus service technician with more than 35 years’ experience in the industry, said some trucks are waiting on components that are no longer made or are unavailable.
Durden said: “There are fire trucks on the road right now that if a part fails, there isn’t a replacement part still manufactured or in stock.”
He said two fire trucks in the Caribbean were sitting out of service while crews waited for a part to arrive.
In Alachua County, a 2009 ladder truck due for retirement in 2024 remains in frontline service while the department waits for its replacement, which is expected in January 2027.
When that vehicle is out of service, the department has no backup aerial apparatus.
Asked whether crews still respond to incidents without an aerial ladder available, Theus said: “without aerial device? Yes, we do.”
Theus said smaller departments are especially exposed when a single breakdown or crash can remove a vehicle from service.
Industry groups including the International Association of Fire Chiefs are looking at standardised apparatus specifications for different operating environments as departments continue managing ageing fleets and longer procurement cycles.