The Truth About Stoneham's "Million Dollar Fire Truck"

Let's address the misleading claims about Stoneham's fire apparatus purchases head-on. The Fire Department acquired two new engines in 2024, Engine 1 and Engine 4. Engine 1 cost $831,344 and was funded via a capital funding request from Town Meeting. Engine 4 was purchased for $865,824 using federal ARPA funds, not local tax dollars. Here's the neat thing: this truck was already in production for another municipality that cancelled their order, allowing Stoneham to receive it in just 9 months instead of the typical 40+ month wait. By moving quickly, we saved an estimated $234,000-$334,000 compared to ordering new, since comparable engines were selling for $1.1-1.2 million by mid-2024. You read that right: we bought a $1.2m fire truck and we only paid $865k for it, and we used grant money for it. What some folks call "wasteful spending" we call "an amazing deal."

The "wasteful spending" narrative ignores why we desperately needed this equipment. Our oldest in-service engine was manufactured in 1989, meaning it was 35 years old when it was replaced. Our newest was from 2011, meaning our newest piece of equipment was already 13 years old at the time. Meanwhile, emergency calls increased 40% between 2000 and 2024, from 3,087 to 4,344 annual alarms. Fire engines have a 24-year expected lifespan, making the annual cost of Engine 4 roughly $36,076 per year--less than the salary of a single firefighter. When aging equipment breaks down during an emergency, people die. This isn't "extra" equipment, it's the bare minimum for a functioning fire department. There is an insidious lie going around that some of these engines aren't in-use. In 2024 alone every engine answered at least 800 calls.

Now let's talk about the storage facility rental that critics love to weaponize. Our fire station was built in 1916 for horse-drawn apparatus. It literally cannot fit modern equipment like Engine 4. When trucks are stored improperly and exposed to the elements, freezing can cause up to $40,000 in damage for a truck and put it out of commission for 2-3 months. With new trucks taking up to 4 years to replace and costing over $1.2 million, outdoor storage is monumentally irresponsible from a financial perspective. Chief Grafton explored every alternative: Public Works doesn't have adequate space, surrounding communities have no room, and storing trucks out-of-town means you can't access them during emergencies. Renting storage isn't wasteful; it's the only fiscally responsible option when you're operating from a century-old building.

The big scandal here isn't the fire truck purchase, it's that we're still operating from a century-old facility designed for horses while call volume has exploded 40%. The smart investment would be a new fire station that can house our equipment properly, but that costs tens of millions of dollars we don't have. So instead, we made the smartest possible choices with limited resources: secured federal funding to buy apparatus at a massive discount, are renting storage to protect million-dollar assets from preventable damage, and won't need to order another engine for approximately 12 years. Anyone calling this mismanagement either doesn't understand municipal finance or is deliberately misleading you. The question isn't why we spent this money, it's what the alternative looks like: putting homes, businesses, and lives at risk by operating with outdated, unreliable equipment, under the false notion of "saving money."

This article was originally posted to SaveOurStoneham.org.