In a memo to interim City Manager José Garza on July 24, Council Member Mackenzie Kelly raised concerns about the issue and said this “poses significant health and safety risks” to firefighters.
The gist
The 17 trucks without functioning air conditioning are out of about 100 in the fleet. The AFD has a total of 397 units in its vehicle fleet, which includes fire apparatus and boats, Walls said.
The AFD works with the Austin Fleet Mobility Services Department to repair the trucks when needed. The department has a vacancy of 15 positions out of 114 with only 14 technicians that repair both fire and emergency medical vehicles.
An ideal vehicle technician ratio is 50-1, but the ratio in Austin is 70-1, Walls said.
What’s next?
The fleet mobility services department and the AFD are working on initiatives to lower the amount of air conditioning failures, Walls said. These include:
- Performing annual inspections of air conditioning
- Creating protocols to report air conditioning failures
- Working with manufacturers to improve air conditioning
- Teaching fire crews how to efficiently use air conditioning in units
