The City of Providence is suing the country’s largest firetruck manufacturers, alleging they consolidated the industry through mergers before engaging in a scheme to simultaneously increase their profit margins.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island on June 11, alleges the three companies now control over 70% of their industry’s market share, and trade confidential pricing information through an industrial organization, which allegedly enables them to coordinate price hikes.
“The act of eliminating so many manufacturers alone reduced competition, allowing the remaining players to increase prices and delay deliveries,” Providence’s complaint said. “But making matters worse for customers, the few now-dominant companies further suppressed competition by sharing confidential information through their trade association, the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association.”
The city government alleges that Pierce Manufacturing, a subsidiary of the Oshkosh Corporation, was able to rapidly increase prices because of the price-fixing scheme.
The lawsuit said the price Providence paid Pierce for the same model of firetruck rose from $449,159 in 2021 to $734,320 in 2024.
The complaint claims the increase was driven by higher profits, not simply by higher costs. Oshkosh’s profit margin more than doubled from 4.8% in 2022 to 10.5% in 2024, according to the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, the wait time to deliver purchased trucks has risen industrywide from about 18 months to nearly four years, according to the Providence Fire Department, leaving the city with aging vehicles that have outlived their recommended lifespan.
“I have firefighters that are younger than the trucks they’re driving around in,” Providence Fire Chief Derek Silva said in an interview.
One truck on the front line is now 12 years older than the standard retirement age for fire vehicles, Silva said. Another in the reserve fleet is 17 years older than its recommended retirement date, he said.
The lawsuit lays out a recent history of corporate mergers in the firetruck manufacturing sector that it claims contributed to these changes. The shift in the industry, the lawsuit alleges, was sparked by a “roll-up” of previously independent manufacturers by the private equity firm American Industrial Group. Other companies pursued similar mergers.
“As recently as 2015, approximately two dozen independent companies manufactured fire trucks,” the complaint said. “Today, only three companies dominate the industry.”
All three of those companies are named as defendants in the lawsuit: the Oshkosh Corporation, the Terex Corporation, and Rosenbauer America LLC. Their trade association, the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association, is also listed as a co-defendant.
Providence’s complaint lays out claims similar to dozens of antitrust lawsuits filed by fire departments across the country. The country’s largest firefighters union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, said 43 of those lawsuits have already been consolidated as a single class action case in Wisconsin’s federal court.
The Federal Trade Commission and Texas’ attorney general have also opened investigations into the business practices of firetruck manufacturers.
Jay Colbert, an IAFF union leader in New England, said fire departments across the country are now at the mercy of a marketplace with little meaningful competition.
“There really isn’t much difference in pricing,” Colbert said. “Cities and towns are getting bids and they’re all basically within a few thousand dollars of each other.”
Rhode Island’s federal court assigned Providence’s suit to Judge Mary S. McElroy. The defendants are due to respond in court in late June.
The Oshkosh Corporation and the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association did not respond to requests for comment.
