For Fiscal Year 2025, the Scarborough Fire Department has submitted a request to fund the purchase of a new fire engine. If approved, this purchase will empower the department to retire its oldest fire engine, a 20-year-old model. The fire engine slated for retirement was originally purchased for $369,675. In the last five years alone, the maintenance costs for the 20-year-old fire engine have exceeded $90,000, nearly 25% of the original purchase price of the vehicle.

Fire engines are the backbone vehicle of the Fire Department, with one engine assigned to each of the six Neighborhood Fire Stations. A fire engine is equipped with a pump to build water pressure, an on-board water tank, and fire hose to be able to extinguish fires. Scarborough fire engines are also equipped with portable ladders to access upper floors, as well as various tools and pieces of equipment utilized in firefighting and rescue. Additionally, all Scarborough fire engines are equipped with emergency medical equipment, including automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to rapidly treat patients in need of medical attention. Due to the large size of the town, fire engines and their crews often arrive at medical calls from a nearby neighborhood fire station and begin patient care before one of our staffed ambulances arrive.

The Scarborough Fire Department has utilized and regularly revised a strategic apparatus replacement plan for more than 80 years. This plan provides a data-driven, fiscally and operationally responsible framework for the composition, operational deployment, maintenance and scheduled replacement of the fleet. This plan is regularly reviewed and incorporates industry best practices, tracking trends of call volume, and input regarding maintenance from experts at Scarborough Public Works.

This collaborative and considered approach has also led to the evolution of the design of our fleet, with new fire engines incorporating reduced overall length that significantly increases maneuverability, standardization of layout, equipment, enhanced safety features that protect both the firefighters riding in the vehicle and the motoring public, and changes in vehicle and compartment height that make working on and around the vehicle more ergonomically correct.

While the Scarborough Fire Department’s replacement schedule historically considers vehicle use, age and the associated maintenance costs, a new challenge being factored in is that the fire service, like nearly every other part of life, continues to be impacted by supply chain and service challenges that have arisen over the past few years. The wait times for a new fire engine to be built and delivered now range between 24 and 48 months and are not projected to decrease in the near future.

The increase in build times represents two significant financial impacts: Deferred purchases result in a significant increase in purchase price. For example, the price to purchase a vehicle identical to Scarborough’s newest fire engine has increased over $375,000 in two years. The second financial impact is the ongoing increase in maintenance costs and the associated down time for the aging fire engine slated for retirement.

The request to fund the purchase of a new fire engine this year represents a longstanding effort to be responsible stewards of the resources provided to us by the residents we serve, continuing to field the most operationally effective fleet of vehicles possible, and to promote the safety of the public and our firefighters by providing them with the most up-to-date equipment and safety systems possible as they respond to and mitigate emergencies.

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