Jan 29, 2009 4:55 pm US/Eastern
Fire Truck Repair Costs Doubled In Recent Years
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Ladder 26 sustained heavy front-end damage shown here as crews removed the vehicle some 8 hours after the Jan. 9 wreck.
WBZ
Spending on service and repairs to the entire Boston fire fleet of trucks has doubled over the last three years, according to city records.
The information from the spending report comes just weeks after Ladder 26 careened out of control and slammed into a building in Mission Hill, killing
Lt. Kevin Kelley.
An investigation later determined that
Ladder 26's brakes failed, causing the tragic crash.
The District Attorney's investigation is still ongoing, but there has been plenty of controversy over the service and repairs of the city's fleet of fire vehicles.
Now the question of whether the increased spending on repairs in recent years is a sign of safety problems with trucks breaking down or if it's a sign that the city realized it needed to do a better job maintaining its fleet.
According to spending records, the city of Boston spent nearly $740,000 for repairs in 2006.
In 2007, that spending jumped to over $1 million. By 2008, repair and service costs were more than $1.5 million. That's double the bill for 2006.
This money went to 51 vendors that were contracted to do work for the Boston Fire Department.
There were large increases for companies like Greenwood Emergency Vehicles, which did work on Ladder 26, Damian Diesel and Suspension Specialists, which work on the suspensions and brakes on the trucks.
Commissioner Rod Fraser defends the increase in spending.
WBZ spoke with firefighters' union vice president Rich Paris, who says the city has been putting Band-Aid on top of Band-Aid on an aging fleet.
"The engines and ladders are in such poor conditions they keep breaking down and that forces repairs," Paris said. "The city should replace the trucks every eight to 10 years, and that's not being done."
Fraser says they have decreased the average age of the trucks on the fleet and continue to work on this.
In the meantime, all brakes on the city's fire trucks continue to undergo
safety inspections in the wake of the recent fatal accident.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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