US lawmakers have launched an investigation into soaring prices and wait times for fire engines that have slammed fire departments nationwide — and probing whether private equity firms are to blame.
The bipartisan investigation by US Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.) was prompted by widespread complaints from fire departments detailing delayed deliveries, faulty components and rapidly escalating prices.
Prices for ladder trucks have jumped from $750,000–$900,000 in the mid-2010s to around $2 million today, while pumper trucks now often cost over $1 million.
Delivery times have likewise exploded, stretching from less than a year before the pandemic to as long as four-and-a-half years in some cities.
That has left fire departments across the US struggling with severe delays and soaring costs, a crisis that has left cities like Los Angeles dangerously under-equipped during emergencies.
During the recent Palisades wildfires, over 100 of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s 183 trucks were out of service, a situation exacerbated by aging fleets and skyrocketing vehicle costs.
“Private equity is padding shareholders’ wallets at the expense of public safety,” the senators wrote in their letter to the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), highlighting the urgent need to understand the role financial investors are playing in the critical public safety industry.
A primary focus of the investigation is American Industrial Partners (AIP), a private equity firm that, over the last 20 years, acquired several specialty vehicle manufacturers, including those making fire trucks.
These companies were merged into Rev Group, which was later taken public but remained under AIP’s operational influence, according to the New York Times.
“The New York Times story suggests the industry-wide price increases and extended manufacturing lead times for fire trucks are due in sole or large part to market consolidation and lack of competition, which is inaccurate and does not take into consideration the challenges faced by both REV Group and the industry,” a spokesperson for Rev Group told The Post.
Rev Group, as part of a strategy to boost profit margins, closed two manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania and Virginia in 2021, according to the Times.
Previously, the fire truck manufacturing market comprised many small, local businesses.
However, Wall Street firms recognized opportunities in struggling smaller manufacturers, leading to widespread industry consolidation. Rev Group alone now commands up to 30 percent of the market, with Rev, Oshkosh Corporation, and Rosenbauer collectively dominating roughly 70 to 80 percent.
Timothy Sullivan, former CEO of Rev Group, once outlined a goal to analysts to increase profit margins from approximately 5% to over 10%.
“You bring them into the fold, you got to give them the religion, and they’ve got it now,” he explained.
Yet the aggressive strategy and subsequent plant closures coincided with soaring backlogs.
Rev Group’s outstanding orders ballooned from approximately $1 billion before the pandemic to around $4 billion currently, with anticipated delivery times stretching up to three years.
Edward Kelly, general president of IAFF, remarked that the pandemic initially obscured underlying issues in the industry.
“But in hindsight, it was masking what ends up being a main driver of higher cost and lag time in production: the monopolizing of fire truck and ambulance manufacturing in the United States,” Kelly said, adding, “At the end of the day, absent competition, monopoly capitalism is a shakedown.”
Smaller cities like Watertown, NY, and Camden, NJ, have reported delays of several years for new vehicles and have resorted to buying used equipment.
Meanwhile, cities such as Seattle, Atlanta and Houston are all coping with outdated fleets, compounding maintenance costs and reducing operational readiness.
Even when funding is available, delivery bottlenecks mean new trucks can take years to arrive.
“In the last five years, particularly during the pandemic, fire apparatus prices and delivery times have increased across the fire industry in the United States, driven by inflationary pressures, supply chain and labor constraints,” a spokesperson for Rev Group told The Post.
“At the same time, the industry experienced an unprecedented increase in demand, which accompanied the stimulus provided by the CARES and Inflation Reduction Acts, and greatly increased industry backlogs.”
Rev Group said that supply constraints were compounded by soaring demand in the post-pandemic era.
“As reported, Rev Group has increased our production throughput for our fire and emergency vehicles by almost 30% in the last two years to help fire departments receive their trucks more quickly,” the company said.
