Our fleet is aging. Our newest fire truck (engine 9) turned nine years old this year. Three of our other trucks are 16 years or older. As with any vehicle, as they age repairs become more frequent and more expensive. Although our trucks do not have high mileage, they do have 100’s of hours of operation at incident scenes, which takes a toll on all working components.

The vehicles themselves increase in cost as well. A typical fire truck that cost $118,000 in 1984 had increased to an estimated $375,000 today. As vehicles become specialized, such as with aerial apparatus, the cost are further increased. Our aerial truck that cost $360,000 in 1996 would today cost $750,000 to replace.

We need to implement an apparatus plan that will reduce our short and long-term costs while ensuring we have the vehicles we need to meet response needs. This plan should include fleet consolidation and analysis of the cost/benefit of refurbishing a fire truck versus replacing it.

We estimate that $869,000 will be needed over the next ten years to take care of our fleet including refurbishing or replacing aged vehicles.