Baltimore City is allocating nearly $3 million more for the city’s Fire Department to procure and maintain its engine and vehicle fleet in 2024.

The budget increase comes after the Fire Department testified last December that its fleet was aging and it was operating with about 30% less apparatus than it needed to cover the jurisdiction.

“We have a total of 17 fire companies that are permanently staffed, we're down five,” Joshua Fannon, president of the Baltimore Fire Officers Association, told the City Council’s Public Safety and Government Operations Committee last December. “This is not because we don't have the staffing for it, it’s because we don't have the physical apparatus for it. And that is an unacceptable situation and puts a lot of our members at risk.”

The FY 2024 budget appropriates $28.4 million for the Fire Department, up from $25.6 million last year.

“The funding includes $1.5 million in grant funding through the William H. Amoss State grant program and the corresponding local match,” the budget documentation states. “In FY 2024 these funds will be used to purchase two fire engines.”

Concerns over the Fire Department arose in 2022 when the Stricker Street fire killed three firemen and led to the Baltimore City Fire Chief Niles Ford’s resignation.

At the request of City Councilmember Zeke Cohen, who represents District 1 in southeast Baltimore, the fire department filed a report on what it would take to get back to a healthy fleet.

The report laid out three options for the city: stay at the same funding level and the fleet will dwindle, add $7.5 million a year for moderate growth and a perfectly healthy fleet in 10 years or add $15 million a year and fix the fleet in 5 years.

One of the main issues is aging vehicles, which leads to more maintenance and time off duty.

Industry standards suggest that ambulances serve a lifespan of six years, engines 10 years and ladder trucks 15 years, according to the report obtained by WYPR.

The fire department wants to keep its vehicles at a target range of half their life span – three, five and seven and a half years respectively.

The current age of the fleet far exceeds those targets. Ambulances are an average of 6.3-years-old, engines are 8.5 years of age and ladders 9.1 years.

If the city stayed at the budget of $24 million a year, it would have lost six vehicles a year, according to the report.

The budget increase for FY 2024 doesn’t meet the Fire Department’s recommendations, but may staunch some of the fleet’s deterioration.