08/31/2026
Sticker shock is real. We don’t have to tell you that- prices are up everywhere.
You see it at the grocery store, when you pay for repairs or when it’s time to replace a vehicle.
West Metro is seeing it, too.
In 2018, West Metro paid $633,267 for a fire engine like this one. Today, a comparable new engine costs $1,384,099.
That’s nearly a 119% increase in nine years.
When we buy an engine, we get a lot of use out of it. At West Metro, an engine typically spends 20 years in front-line service, assigned to a station and responding to calls every day, followed by another five years as a reserve.
That’s 25 years responding to fires, medical emergencies, crashes, rescues and other calls for help.
But eventually, every engine reaches the end of its service life. And when you consider rising prices across an entire fleet- not just fire engines, but ambulances and other emergency vehicles- the costs add up quickly.
That’s why we want our community to understand what it costs to provide emergency services, how long we use the equipment we purchase and how much those costs have changed.
