Report blasts city firetruck maintenance
Says mechanics and drivers lack training, records shoddy
The Boston Fire Department for years has taken a "loosey-goosey approach" to "virtually all areas of fleet management," failing to perform adequate preventive maintenance on firetrucks, keeping shoddy records of repairs, and relying on poorly trained maintenance crews that lacked even basic knowledge such as the recommended frequency of oil changes, according to a consultant's review.
The review, commissioned by the city after a fatal firetruck crash in January, also concluded that firefighters are inadequately trained to drive and inspect the trucks. Overall, the review by Mercury Associates, a fleet-management consultant based in Maryland, found the Fire Department suffers from a lack of defined policies and procedures for procurement, maintenance, and repair of firetrucks.
"The current business culture or philosophy in the maintenance division simply is not one that emphasizes objectivity, precision, thoroughness, accountability, economic efficiency, or myriad other goals or values that characterize a technically rigorous approach to management," the consultant, Paul T. Lauria, concluded in the review.
Lauria, who has reviewed fleet maintenance in about two dozen of the largest cities in the United States, said yesterday that he was taken aback by the outdated practices in Boston.
"For a city of Boston's size and stature, I'm surprised they're not further along than they are," he said.
In his 19-page report, Lauria recommends the department immediately hire a fleet safety coordinator and develop an inspection protocol for the department's 57 front-line firetrucks and two dozen backup vehicles. In addition, he recommends fully computerizing maintenance records and providing more training for firefighters who drive the trucks and those who maintain them.
Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser, who commissioned the review, said yesterday that he agreed in general with the consultant's findings and has already taken steps to correct some of the problems.
He is currently conducting interviews for a professional fleet manager and expects to hire licensed mechanics soon to work alongside firefighters in the department's maintenance division. Fraser also has reassigned four firefighters to run new driver training courses.
"I commissioned this report because it is important to get at the ground truth of the problems with our maintenance process," Fraser said in a telephone interview. "While the report recognizes the progress we've made in the past couple of years, it points out the hard work we still need to do to bring about the systems and cultural reforms necessary."
Fire Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley was killed Jan. 9 when the firetruck he was riding in careered down a hill and slammed into an apartment building in Mission Hill. A review of maintenance records for the truck found that its brakes had not been inspected since March 2008, even though the truck's manufacturer recommends inspections every three months.
The outside review did not include an assessment of the crash or its causes. Three separate investigations of the death are underway, one by Boston police and the Suffolk district attorney's office, another by a Fire Department board of inquiry, and the third by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Results of those probes are not expected for several weeks, officials said.
Lauria's review provides the first comprehensive outside perspective since the crash on the safety of Boston's firetrucks, which weigh several tons each and barrel through the city's narrow streets at high speeds every day.
The consultant interviewed fire officials and personnel over two days in February and reviewed documents and cost data pertaining to fleet management and maintenance practices.
The first deficiency noted in the report was a lack of expertise in fleet management and technical firetruck maintenance and repair.
Maintenance of the fleet currently is overseen by a staff of about a dozen uniformed firefighters who are not licensed mechanics. The department has not provided sufficient training or certifications, the report said.
When maintenance division officials were asked about the manufacturers' recommended oil change intervals, which usually are a key determinant of the frequency of preventive maintenance, "They told us they do not know what these recommendations are," Lauria wrote in the report.
The second area marked for improvement was firetruck inspections. The department currently sends trucks out annually for state safety inspections, but needs more frequent inspections in accordance with manufacturers' recommendations, the review said. Lauria suggested the department should train firefighters to check equipment before and after every run.
"It is widely acknowledged by both senior management and firefighters we interviewed that BFD does not have an effective vehicle inspection program," he wrote.
Slipshod record-keeping also plagues the department, with only a portion of repair orders entered into a computerized system that allows managers to track fleet maintenance, the report said. In addition, maintenance requests are often called in by telephone, leaving no paper record of the request.
The report also cited the lengthy amounts of time firetrucks are out for service. Because the department lacks in-house expertise, most repair work is contracted to outside vendors who can take weeks, if not months, to complete the fixes. That has aggravated maintenance problems because some firefighters are reluctant to report issues with vehicles "out of fear that they may be taken out of service for an extended period of time in order to address a backlog of defects that has developed due to poor preventive maintenance practices."
When the trucks are returned to service, the report concludes, the work of the outside vendors is not sufficiently double-checked.
The firefighters union, Local 718, did not return calls for comment yesterday. In the past, the union has opposed the city's push to replace firefighters in the maintenance division with licensed mechanics unless the mechanics are members of the firefighters union or the city creates 24 full-time firefighter positions.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino has rebuffed those requests, and, after the crash, ordered Fraser to hire four mechanics, despite union opposition, and a fleet manager.
Family members of Kelley, the lieutenant and 30-year firefighter who died in the crash, did not return a message left yesterday seeking comment.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. 