The Fire Apparatus Crisis Has Two Problems. We're Only Talking About One.

Earlier this month, the IAFF published a detailed account of the fire apparatus crisis, covering the lawsuits filed by Los Angeles County and Milwaukee, the antitrust investigation launched by Texas, and the ongoing pressure on the DOJ and FTC to scrutinize REV Group, Oshkosh, and Rosenbauer. If you haven't read it, you should. The supply-side case is serious and the legal actions are warranted.

But the article stops at half the problem. The demand side is broken too, and no lawsuit fixes it.

The supply-side case is real

Texas, Los Angeles County, and Milwaukee have all taken legal action against the three manufacturers, alleging price fixing, supply suppression, and anticompetitive market consolidation. Three companies now control more than 70% of U.S. fire apparatus production. The allegations that their representatives used FAMA meetings to exchange nonpublic pricing information and coordinate supply are exactly the kind of conduct federal antitrust enforcement exists to address. The investigations are warranted and long overdue.

But the fire service needs to have an honest conversation about what we have built on the demand side, because no consent decree fixes that.

We built a procurement model that guarantees this outcome

We have spent decades insisting that every department needs a custom-engineered apparatus. Custom pump configurations, custom cab heights, custom body layouts, custom compartmentation, custom paint. Every unit is essentially a prototype. We have handed manufacturers a business model where nothing is standard, nothing is repeatable, and every order is a negotiation. Then we are surprised when lead times stretch to three years and prices double.

Every unit is essentially a prototype. Then we are surprised when lead times stretch to three years and prices double.

Look at how other public safety fleets are purchased. Police agencies buy off-contract vehicles in volume. Transit agencies spec standardized buses and bid competitively. The military uses type standardization across thousands of units. The fire service resists all of it, and manufacturers have learned to profit from the resistance.

The standards process is part of the loop

NFPA 1901 compounds the problem. Every revision cycle adds requirements that push apparatus further from anything resembling a standard commercial vehicle. More mandated features, more engineering complexity, more cost locked in before a single department-specific option is added. And here is the part that deserves scrutiny alongside the antitrust investigations: FAMA, the same association whose meetings are cited in the Milwaukee lawsuit as a venue for allegedly coordinating pricing, is an active participant in the NFPA standards development process. The industry helping write the complexity requirements while allegedly colluding on the price of that complexity is a closed loop. It should be examined as part of any serious reform effort.

Both problems, at the same time

I want to be clear: if companies coordinated to suppress supply and raise prices, they should face the full consequences of that conduct. The lawsuits and investigations should proceed, and the evidence should be followed wherever it leads.

But even in a fully competitive market with a dozen manufacturers bidding against each other, a procurement model built on mass customization will produce high costs and long lead times. The structural problem does not go away with a consent decree.

The harder conversation, the one the IAFF is not having, is whether the fire service is willing to accept standardized apparatus specifications that enable genuine competitive bidding and volume production. Apparatus that performs the core mission without the custom bodywork, the one-off cab dimensions, and the feature list negotiated spec-by-spec with a sales rep. That is where the real cost savings are, and it requires the fire service to change its own behavior, not just sue manufacturers.

We can pursue accountability on the supply side and reform on the demand side at the same time. We should be doing both.