I was surprised when I specifically checked on Pierce that they are owned by Oshkosh and publicly traded. [2][3]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/us/fire-engines-shortage-...
Now departments are, from the scuttlebutt I hear, routinely paying more than $1,000,000 for an engine. Of course there are differences (engines are not fungible) but broadly speaking, the idea of any normal fire engine costing more than $1,000,000 just leaves me gob-smacked. Even $500,000 would seem outlandish to me.
Also, yes, lead times have gotten nutty. I recall chatting with a battalion chief from Chapel Hill (NC) FD one day a couple of years ago, and he was telling me they had two new trucks on order (since delivered) that were going to wind up taking somewhere on the order of two years from order to delivery (I don't recall what the exact timeline wound up being, but I'm pretty sure it was not "earlier than expected").
I believe parts for repairs have been impacted in a similar fashion. No hard evidence on that point, but again, going from scuttlebutt and random conversations with friends who are still involved in the fire service.
(I believe 1999-2025 is ~92% so 250=480.)
Is that the rule of thumb? I never knew. I guess you only really notice it big-time on large-ticket items that are purchased infrequently like fire trucks. Maybe a car or something, but I never buy brand new cars, so that's probably another reason I haven't been in tune with the degree of inflation.
Whether or not that's a good rule of thumb depends on how much you believe in putting economists and "neoliberals" in charge :)
Namely, a new Republican administration dropping chaos-bombs on the US economy and trying to seize direct control of the banking-infrastructure, which in turn would put Trump's little hands onto the levers for interest-rates.
1995-2005 $2.10
1965-1995 $4.84
1935-1965 $2.30
1985-2015 $2.20
1980-1990 $1.59
1970-1980 $2.12
1960-1970 $1.31
Funding for Firefighters in the US is usually on the county level. The vast majority of counties in the US are poor as dirt, and can't pay for anything.
Don't ever use an "average" to look at the US. From education to sewers to courts to elections to the DMV to land zoning, the US is 50 different countries. They do wildly different things, have wildly different results, and generally are hard to compare.
Then add the Rural/Urban divide and things become even more bleak. Rural fire departments are usually partially or mostly volunteer forces.
So while Urban fire departments probably pay alright (ignoring that the job is "Run into that burning building and maybe die"), do not mistake that for "Firefighters (in general) get paid well"
No, they said 500k would also be outlandish. But the commenter correctly caught that 500k would in fact be exactly the same price, inflation adjusted. This makes a big difference.
I'm not sure I have an opinion on that. Again, I've been away from the fire service for a long time, and there's a lot of issues that I'm probably not fully up-to-date on.
Do you support the custom-build approach?
I have mixed feelings on that, and always have. On the one hand, I do believe that local needs vary a lot from place to place. For example, a rural farming community in Iowa probably genuinely needs things different from, say, San Francisco. But does each department really need to specify every little detail of how their truck is configured? I'm a big proponent of standardization and I sometimes think that people spec'ing fire trucks get too caught in believing "our case is special" when maybe it's not that special after all. So... uh, yeah. I hate to waffle, but it's hard to say for sure.
https://www.northantsfire.gov.uk/2022/05/17/new-engines-0522...
> There has been a large private equity roll up
Private equity is the "misaligned AI" we were warned about, only less powerful. If we can't even defeat private equity, what hope do we have?
We shouldn't be war-gaming how we can defeat malicious AI. A more enlightening and realistic scenario is to war-game how we can defeat PE armed with AI.