Fire departments in Boston and Houston appear to be quite different. The Boston Fire Department takes pride in its history and tradition. The Houston Fire Department sees major changes with each newly elected mayor and newly appointed fire chief. But both departments made national headlines as a result of poor maintenance on each department's emergency vehicles, Boston just this year and Houston almost 15 years ago.

On Jan. 9, a Boston ladder truck's brakes failed and the rig crashed, killing Lt. Kevin Kelley, a 30-year veteran of the department. After the fatality, Fire Commissioner Roderick J. Fraser told the Boston Globe that the department did not have a routine preventive-maintenance program. It also did not have certified mechanics or trained vehicle technicians in its fleet-services department — despite having more than 200 pieces of equipment, 1,467 uniformed personnel, and 70 companies and units.

Emergency inspections after the fatal crash had to be stopped because too many rigs were being taken out of service. Even the department's 37-year-old fireboat had to be docked temporarily.

Investigative reports further revealed Boston's multitude of apparatus problems in recent years. On Feb. 20, 2007, a 100-foot, medium-duty aerial ladder was involved in an accident, and inspections revealed pre-existing damage to the turntable console that houses the ladder controls. On Dec. 31, 2008, Ladder 23 crashed into a fence when its brakes failed. In another incident, a rescue truck's throttle linkage snapped while responding to a fire call. Other apparatus problems surfaced: broken air horns, racing engines and more brake problems.

Troubled History

Soon after the accident, the city hired Mecury Associates to inspect its fire department fleet operations and make recommendations. The consultants were commissioned to identify the weaknesses that needed to be overcome; consequently the report focuses on negatives versus positives. The resulting 22-page report, “Maintenance Practices Assessment for Boston Fire Department,” is a shocking account of Boston's lack of preventive or scheduled maintenance, repairs and trained or certified personnel.

“The report speaks for itself and it's not very good,” Mercury president Paul Lauria said. “I have been a consultant for 25 years, and for a city its size and stature, it was pretty amazing. It's hard to fathom that when you ask ‘what the oil change intervals are,’ they have no idea.”

Among areas cited in the report are the lack of a professional fleet manager or professional apparatus maintenance technicians; no formally defined preventive maintenance program for fire apparatus; no documentation for annual inspections or oil changes reportedly performed and no checklist or other specifications as to what actions were done, and when. Also alleged in the report was inadequate driver training.

“Other than what they receive at the fire academy, firefighters receive no on-the-job training,” Lauria said. “Their Local 718 has been relatively quiet. It's hard to imagine that they are the ones that got firefighters exempt from getting [commercial driver's licenses].”

The report recommended specific actions for the Boston Fire Department to take at three month intervals for the next 18 months.

“We're not talking about a small municipality, but a city the size of Boston,” Lauria said. “Hopefully that report will have an impact.”

Texas-Sized Woes

But a major metropolitan department with a shoddy maintenance record is nothing new. Ten years ago, NBC's Dateline aired a segment on the Houston Fire Department's fleet-maintenance program. A local news channel previously had reported that a pumper arrived at a house fire without water, leading to the death of a young boy. Subsequent stories revealed leaking trucks, rusted aerials and other unsafe maintenance issues.

At the time, Chris Connealy was a district chief and served on Houston's apparatus committee. He said maintenance problems began in the 1980s, when the department began running both EMS and fire calls. As call volume increased exponentially, the lack of a city-funded apparatus replacement program depleted Houston's fleet.

“[Lack of] money was a common denominator, but it was also internal problems,” Conneally said. “Frankly, the mechanics knew what the problems were, but there was no effort to talk to the mechanics to get their input. I give the credit to our mechanics and we made a number of changes.”

After the Dateline segment aired, the new mayor and new fire chief changed apparatus-maintenance policy in Houston. Connealy was appointed to oversee fleet services, where he found more than 900 work requests. After a few years, Houston was able to purchase 50 new engines and 25 ladder trucks.

“We'd get new apparatus, and then we'd go a couple years with nothing,” said Conneally, who retired from Houston after 25 years and currently is fire chief of the Cedar Park (Texas) Fire Department. “The lack of consistent replacement caused havoc in the department. We had trucks with leaks that would run out of water before they got to the incident, or we had ladder trucks that would not pass inspection, just a host of issues that were frustrating to us on the apparatus committee. Even specifications we'd put forward would get changed at the shops.”

Unfortunately, sometimes history repeats itself. When Connealy became Houston's chief in 2001, he was forced to lease new ladder trucks because 86 ladder trucks did not meet third-party testing and had to be taken out of service.

Fleet Weak

The Boston Fire Department's fleet-maintenance section is manned by the motor squad — 12 uniformed firefighters with an interest in mechanics. With two staff members on duty each shift, the motor squad offers constant light-duty coverage. They can rotate tires or fix broken lights — but they are not licensed mechanics.

“The motor squad is like the AAA of the fire department,” said Michael Liotta, district chief of fleet facilities. “If a piece of apparatus breaks down, they will go out to where the apparatus is and see if they can fix it, bring it back here, or [decide] if it has to be towed someplace to a vendor.”

Boston had a working fleet-services operation with 16 mechanics in the early eighties, Liotta said, but fiscal problems forced changes and the motor-squad concept was introduced.

Liotta also expressed on-going frustrations with the city stemming from attempts to get help. Liotta and Fleet/Facilities & Maintenance Deputy Chief Peter Laizza proposed a maintenance plan to the city in 2007.

“We told them we would need one or two mechanics,” Liotta said. “But we were told that there was no money in the budget, so it went on the back burner.”

Houston suffered similar problems 15 years ago, when mechanics went to a 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. workday four days a week, with only trouble-shooters available Friday through Sunday. Mechanics held the rank of firefighter, and eventually that was changed to captain positions on engine companies.

“A four-day week doesn't work for most departments, and certainly not for a department the size of Houston and the deteriorating conditions we had,” Connealy said.

Moving Forward

Following the recommendations from Mercury Associates, Laizza said fleet services is “getting better. We're doing preventive maintenance every day. Each apparatus is checked four times a year, so the things we are finding now are more or less minor things because we're more on top of it.”

Lauria said Boston did go out for bid for a consultant to help implement and upgrade its maintenance operations, but Mercury was not awarded the contract.

Meanwhile, Boston's Fraser said in May he would hire three mechanics. Since then, the department has hired one diesel mechanic and is in the process of hiring a second. Laizza said the motor squad is being certified in certain types of maintenance. Pumps are tested annually and aerials will continue to be tested by third parties. In addition, the fire department is enforcing seatbelt use.

Laizza wasn't sure of the annual budget for Boston's maintenance shops, but he said the department recently purchased almost $250,000 worth of tools.

“Really, the biggest difference is the city's commitment to the funds,” Laizza said. “We tried to do this in the past and they didn't want to do it, [but] now they're backing us up financially, at least at this moment. Ever since the fatal accident in January, all of a sudden we can get anything we need because the city is back-pedaling a little bit. They probably realized that for the past 25 years, they haven't really supported it.”

Fleet services also has hired a civilian director of transportation, Shawn Herlihy, as well as a safety director for maintenance, William Stockwell. Laizza said the city plans to add more civilians to fleet services.

“We've always just sent things out to be repaired by certified vendors, but now they want to do as much as they can in-house with civilian diesel mechanics,” Laizza said. “That's why they are buying all this equipment, to effect this.”

The department purchased a new Rescue 2, due in late November, ordered several other new pieces of apparatus and are ready to order four pumpers for 2010.

“As long as the city backs [the shops] — whether it's by vendors or hired mechanics — the apparatus will be in better shape. With the preventive maintenance, there is no question about how it's going to play out financially,” Laizza said. “Right now the city has the commitment, with the fatal accident in January still only about eight months in the rear-view mirror, but going forward in about another year, what the city has to say and how much we're going to keep spending, that remains to be seen. Right now it's looking better.”

Constant Vigilance

Boston and Houston are just two examples of a larger problem; fire departments across the country are trying to save money and stretch budgets, but in the long run, departments are paying out much more.

“You have to make sure mechanics are properly trained and you have a good fleet-management program in place,” Conneally said. “More importantly, make sure those protocols are being followed. More often than not, apparatus mechanics for fire trucks are similar to those mechanics on airplanes. There is a lot of liability if you don't manage them appropriately.”

Lauria, who also serves as an expert witness, would agree. He said that if a private citizen had been killed instead of a city employee, the department would have faced potential liability in the millions.

“A plaintiff would have them dead to rights,” Lauria said.

While the media exposure Houston and Boston received after their fatal incidents certainly helped to spark change, Conneally said that fire chiefs must remain vigilant.

“You have to keep apparatus and maintenance in front of the policy-makers. … But when the TV, radio and newspaper folks leave, it's easy to forget about that problem because you think you got it fixed. Apparatus in the fire department are very dynamic, and there has to be an apparatus-replacement program. A fire chief has to sell that to the policy-makers, and hopefully the policy-makers will continue to fund that each year.”

Boston Report Findings

Emergency vehicle technicians at conferences have said that Boston's haphazard approach to vehicle maintenance is what happens when chiefs and city managers fail to accept responsibility for the safety of emergency vehicles. The report, “Maintenance Practices Assessment for the Boston Fire Department,” can be downloaded at www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/Final_Report_on_BFD_Fleet_Maintenance_Practices_Assessment.pdf.

Mercury Associates' preliminary recommendations are broken into intervals.

Within three months:

• Develop and implement vehicle-inspection procedures.
• Develop and implement vehicle preventive-maintenance programs for each type of apparatus in the fleet using manufacturer and other suitable industry guidelines, such as NFPA 1911, Inspection, Maintenance, Testing and Retirement of In-Service Automotive Fire Apparatus.
• Hire a fleet-safety coordinator.

Within six months:

• Develop and implement comprehensive policies and procedures governing the management of vendor-performed maintenance and repair services.
• Validate and refine the fleet-replacement plan.

Within 12 months:

• Evaluate the necessity, benefits and costs of expanding, reorganizing and civilianizing the maintenance division.

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