MILWAUKEE COUNTY — A Scripps National investigation highlights a national shortage of ambulance chassis is impacting first responders and in Milwaukee County, the manufacturing issues extend further than just ambulances.
“Delays in getting products delivered, getting replacement parts and building fire apparatus has been a challenge,” Assistant Chief Schuyler Belott with the Milwaukee Fire Department said.
Belott walked TMJ4 through MFD’s repair shop; a building over 90 years old, that is responsible for maintaining the roughly 200 vehicles in the department’s fleet. A building originally meant to fix vehicles pulled by horses now has grounds reinforced to fix massive machines. Belott says the trucks are between 72,000 lbs. and 75,000 lbs.
Thursday, there were a handful of fire trucks and ambulances in need of a variety of repairs. He says the delays from ambulance chassis aren’t isolated to just those med units. He says fire trucks are facing similar delays from manufacturers.
“We’d get an engine previously built within eight to 10 months,” Belott said. “Now, with these backups and everyone in line waiting for a fire apparatus, we’re looking at times of over three years.”
It’s made the repair shop more important than ever before as the fire department tries to squeeze every ounce of life out of these giant red hunks of metal.
“Those miles and hours on engines all add up,” Belott said. “There is only so much they can take before regular scheduled maintenance and then, sometimes more significant repairs are required.”
Belott says MFD’s fire trucks have an average age of 11 years old. In a perfect world, Belott would retire those trucks after about 15 years but they’re having to extend those lifespans.
The ambulances average five years, though the lifespan is roughly seven years for those units. The delays for chassis could cause a ripple effect going forward.
“Not getting any engines delivered for a few years is a huge impact on operationally having things in service,” Belott said. “We have seen a tremendous increase in repair expenses, parts and labor.”
Those repairs can sometimes come from the department's boneyard. Behind its repair shop is a fenced-in lot of vehicles from years past. Belott says they'll pull parts from these out-of-service vehicles to extend the life of the ones still on the road.
"That's always our process to get the most out of what we have," Belott said. "We reuse tires, windows, doors, windshields, things of that nature. We've had to do a bit more recently because of the delays."
At the repair shop, a truck or ambulance will get dropped off but it doesn’t mean the calls for service stop. To ensure service doesn’t miss a beat, the department maintains spare trucks. These are vehicles that have their best years behind them. They’re still operable but not necessarily the most reliable due to their age.
“Those spare apparatus are 20 years old on average now,” Belott said.
Belott explained, when a regular truck is out of commission, members of the department need to drop off the truck at the shop on 1st and Virginia. They have to swap out all of the gear from one truck to the spare apparatus. Then they can drive back to their respective station but it takes them out of the area they protect.
Now, factor in that they have an aging fleet. Just like any vehicle, as they wear down with age and use, problems flare up more frequently. Which can result in teams of firefighters being out of commission more frequently.
“The more often that happens, the more that engine is out of service in the area it protects,” Belott said. “So that time lost with them being in service only puts more pressure on neighboring fire stations and it impacts that community in that area. It does cause delays in responses because the fire trucks are getting changed over so they’re not available in their regular quarters.”
For North Shore Fire, they have similar concerns.
“This one has about 140,000 miles on it,” Chief Robert Whitaker said. “It’s one of our working ambulances on the frontline. We’re probably having to extend that right now just because the lead time to get the vehicles is a little longer.”
Whitaker says it used to take about 12 months for them to receive a new ambulance. Now, it’s closer to 18 to 20 months. On top of that, the costs have skyrocketed. They used to budget $400,000 to $500,000 to be able to pay for new trucks. Now they’re working on increasing that to $1.2 million.
“Last year, we saw a 25 percent increase just in our fire apparatus in one year,” Whitaker said. “It’s a huge increase across the board throughout the industry.”
Whitaker says experts he’s talked to in the industry feel the availability of chassis is fixed. However, the waits for fire departments like his will continue while the system catches up.
“There is this long queue of fire departments across the country waiting,” Whitaker said.
So it will continue to be busy at the Milwaukee Fire Department’s repair shop, as they continue to get the most out of the old dogs in their garage.
“We don’t really have much of a choice,” Belott said. “We have to make it work.”
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