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East of Broken Bow | My nephew works at the place that builds fire trucks in Snyder, NE. They build them for FDs all over the country.
Right now they are building some on contract that will go to California.
One thing that many do not know unless they have a source inside the industry, is how bad all the laws and regulations regarding firefighting equipment has gotten. When he started working there some years ago, they were building about 30 fire trucks a month. Now, they are down to somewhere between 15-20, depending on where the truck goes. They have the same number of people with about the same level of experience, working in the same facilities with the same equipment. The slower production is due to meeting all the new extra requirements for the trucks, which vary from State to State.
His comment is that the fire trucks they are building now going to California take twice as long to build and are more than double the cost of one built for Nebraska, due to so many aspects of them being regulated to death. Can't use components that have been proven reliable for 50 years because of some new regulation, so they are often waiting for some of those pieces to show up before they can finish the truck. On top of that, the plant must be 'certified' to be able to build trucks for California, whatever that means (Nephew wasn't sure what that entailed but it did involve sending a bunch of money to California to get a piece of paper that said they could build trucks for them). Nephew has commented many times that if everything else in California is as over-regulated as a fire truck, he has no desire to ever live there, LOL.
So, while consolidation may have something to do with the lack of Fire truck manufacturers out there, and you can complain that lack of competition is driving the price up, remember that most of the reasons for that revolve around all the rules and regulations involved in building them. Just think about it: Some States like NE, just require the trucks to meet universal Federal regulations. A California truck, which must be built to California specs in a plant that meets California regulations take twice as long to build, and at more than double the cost, with other States being in between. If I remember nephew right, they have to keep on top of over a dozen different sets of regulations for all the different States, and this is for Fire trucks with the same water capacity, and the same pumping capacity. | |
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Fire equipment manufacturers
