By Max Bryan
The Detroit News
CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — When Canton Township Fire Chief Chris Stoecklein ordered two fire trucks in 2023, they cost roughly $600,000 apiece.
In three years, the cost of those engines has ballooned to over $1 million each. That’s a 66% spike despite 9% inflation over the same period, according to the latest records from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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For Stoecklein, that means he has to figure out where the money will come from while making sure that his department’s apparatuses last as long as possible.
“We have to go out and we have to spend taxpayers’ dollars the best we possibly can and be fiscally responsible. We’ve got salaries and buildings to maintain and apparatuses to purchase and equipment to purchase. So when we talk about doubling a cost, any fire chief’s nightmare is purchasing an apparatus and trying to get that into a budget, going back to the taxpayer and saying, ‘Hey, we need more money,’” said Stoecklein, who serves as president of the Michigan Association of Fire Chiefs.
Soaring fire equipment costs are pinching fire departments across Michigan, forcing them to consider everything from buying used fire trucks to seeking dedicated property tax millages to fund equipment. According to the International Association of Fire Fighters, the cost of fire apparatuses has roughly doubled since 2020.
Multiple fire chiefs in Metro Detroit said the price surge is due to a couple of factors, including the rising cost of materials to build fire trucks and a handful of large manufacturers buying up small companies since the COVID-19 pandemic. The manufacturers themselves admitted a backlog of orders emerged when they acquired the smaller companies in recent years, contributing to the price surge.
In many departments, firefighters are working to keep the trucks they have operational as long as they can, said Bloomfield Township Fire Chief John LeRoy.
“At some point, if you’re maxed out of your budget and you can’t ask for more and everything is costing more, where is that money going to come from?” said Bloomfield Township’s LeRoy. “Something’s gotta give eventually.”
In Orion and Waterford townships in Oakland County, where voters rejected fire millages in August, public officials are pleading with residents to pass dedicated millages for the fire department when they head back to the polls on Nov. 3 . Waterford fire officials stressed the need for the millage to pass in light of the apparatus cost increases.
While Orion officials modified their millage asks so they don’t include fire apparatuses on the November ballot, they said the need remains.
“We can’t provide service to our residents without the equipment,” Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett said.
Why the cost increase?
While there isn’t a singular cause of the cost increases in the fire service industry, fire chiefs and manufacturers pointed to several factors.
During a September 2025 U.S. Senate hearing on fire apparatus costs, REV Group Specialty Vehicles President Mike Virnig told Congress that the company took on multi-year delivery delays when it bought up smaller manufacturers.
Pierce Manufacturing Vice President of Sales Dan Meyer told Congress the delays contribute to the soaring prices.
“The input costs that we have to consider are also impacted by the challenge of the lead time, which we also view, like our customers, as bad for our business. The longer that lead time is, the more increases we receive from our supply base,” said Meyer, who added he doesn’t like making fire departments wait for their engines.
Representatives from REV Group could not be reached for comment. Pierce representatives declined to comment.
Fire officials throughout Metro Detroit attributed the price increase to the consolidation of fire apparatus production.
Robert Stokes, deputy Detroit fire commissioner, said the fire service industry had many “mom and pop” shops before COVID-19.
“When we ran it through COVID, a lot of those places started to close, so sustainability was really becoming a challenge for a lot of those types of independent groups,” Stokes said.
“What started happening in the industry is, some of the other industry vendors will buy up some of those mom-and-pop shops in order to sustain the building of the fire apparatuses.”
Stokes said fire departments that want custom features on their fire engines can also contribute to higher costs. He gave the example of Detroit, which has a significant number of speed bumps. That requires the department’s fire engines to have custom suspension, Stokes said.
But those custom features are sometimes foregone in the name of saving money amid the price increases, Canton Township’s Stoecklein said. He gave the example of a water tanker he’s looking to replace.
“At this point, it’s ‘Is it going to drive, is it going to get us to the scene, and is it going to pump water?’” Stoecklein said.
No one can ‘budget tight enough’
Getting rid of “bells and whistles,” as Stoecklein called them, is just one of the ways fire departments are trying to save on engine costs. But some officials said cost-saving measures are not enough.
Bloomfield Township’s LeRoy said the used fire apparatus market has had an “explosion” since the price spike happened. He said used fire trucks used to cost $5,000-$10,000. They now cost more than $100,000.
“These are volunteer companies buying used apparatuses that are already well-used because it’s better than what they have,” LeRoy said.
Bloomfield Township is in a unique position because it’s “built out,” meaning new housing or commercial developments aren’t getting added to the community, he said. The local tax base remains relatively the same across the board, meaning his department doesn’t have extra money to spend on fire apparatuses.
Waterford Township Deputy Fire Chief Gene Butcher also emphasized the role local taxes play in his department’s ability to purchase fire apparatuses. Township voters in August rejected a 1-mill fire operating millage by 92 votes.
The loss of revenue for the township’s fire department leaves the possibility of a $3 million hole in the fire budget, Butcher said.
“When people say ‘Budget better,’ they need to understand: No local fire chief, township board or finance director can budget tight enough to make a million-dollar fire engine cost what it did two years ago,” Butcher said at an Aug. 7 emergency meeting.
Waterford Township now plans to put a 0.88-mill fire tax before voters on the Nov. 3 ballot. The proposed millage would be renewed at its current rate, which is adjusted from the Headlee Amendment, if passed by the voters.
Orion Township is also going back to voters in November to ask them to support a fire and EMS millage after they rejected a 3.85-mill measure in August with 51% of the vote. The proposal would have raised the current 2.92-mill fire and EMS tax by almost an entire mill.
Included in the proposed August millage increase were two ambulances at $500,000 apiece and a ladder truck at $1 million.
This time around, voters will vote on a smaller measure: 2.92 mills for fire and EMS. Voters will also decide on a separate 0.4-mill measure specifically for three additional personnel, firefighting outfits and oxygen tanks.
Even with the millage request decreasing, Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett emphasized the need for money for fire and EMS apparatuses.
“We’d love to buy it cheaper, so that’s a new challenge for us,” Barnett said.
Legislation and lawsuits
As Stoecklein continues to search for ways to pay for fire apparatuses, he hopes legal or legislative actions will temper the prices.
U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D- Massachusetts and Jim Banks, R- Indiana and U.S. Reps. Becca Balint, D- Vermont and Ben Cline, R- Virginia, announced in July that they filed a bipartisan resolution directing the Federal Trade Commission to “investigate serial acquisitions of firetruck manufacturers.” A news release from Warren’s office said the consolidation is undermining public safety and straining fire department budgets.
“Anticompetitive practices are strong-arming our cities, wasting taxpayer dollars and leaving firefighters without life-saving equipment,” Banks said in the news release.
Stoecklein said his organization has brought fire chiefs’ concerns to state legislators, though he doesn’t expect state legislation to fix the price issue. Instead, he’s looking at lawsuits to settle the matter.
For instance, Los Angeles County in California and Milwaukee in Wisconsin have filed lawsuits against REV Group, Oshkosh Corporation, and Rosenbauer Group, alleging the companies have conspired to fix prices, restrict supply, and monopolize the fire apparatus market, according to the International Association of Firefighters.
Stoecklein said fire chiefs are “just going to have to let this play out” in the courts.
“At that point, it’s going to dictate how the fire service moves in the future,” he said.
How is your department handling the surge in apparatus costs — cutting features, buying used, pushing for a millage, or something else?
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