On April 3, 2025, U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Management, sent a letter to the CEOs of REV Group, Oshkosh Corp., and Rosenbauer America requesting information on their order backlogs, an explanation for delayed deliveries, as well as lists of prices for fire apparatus.
The Senators cited an article in the New York Times that covered increased costs and delivery delays that exist in the fire apparatus market currently.
Specifically, the Senators requested the following:
- An itemization of all delayed deliveries of fire trucks and related equipment.
- A comprehensive explanation outlining the reasons for these delayed deliveries.
- A full accounting of prices charged for fire trucks and related equipment, including the change in prices over time.
- A complete list of complaints [the] firms have received from fire departments seeking remediation.
In addition, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have opened a bipartisan investigation and on April 15, 2025, wrote to the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) citing reports they received from chiefs in Massachusetts and Indiana regarding delays and price increases and posed several questions to IAFF president Ed Kelly related to these chiefs’ concerns and to better understand the scope of what is going on in the industry today.
Sens. Hawley and Lee asked for answers to their questions by April 16, 2025, and Sens. Warren and Banks gave the IAFF until April 29, 2025, to provide responses to their questions.
Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment requested comments from the three fire apparatus manufacturers. Oshkosh Corporation and Rosenbauer declined to comment. REV Group provided the following statement:
“The recent media coverage suggests that 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 the industry.
“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. 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. With respect to increased demand, according to internal data from the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association (FAMA), orders for new firefighting vehicles in the United States increased approximately 43%, from an average of 4,169 units a year from 2011–2020, to an average of 5,946 a year from 2021–2023. This occurred at the same time that production was already constrained by the pandemic-related challenges.
“REV Group has been working hard to address these challenges. 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. While REV Group continues to offer fully custom vehicles for our customers who want them, we have also established lines of semi-custom vehicles with a modular design. This allows REV Group to deliver a highly capable vehicle to customers at a great value, in industry-leading delivery times of less than one year.
“In summary, the U.S. fire truck industry has faced incredible challenges, and our team has worked hard to overcome these obstacles and are making good progress. We take tremendous pride in providing our n