No, LAFD doesn’t have 45 electric fire trucks that take hours to recharge | Fact check
The claim: Los Angeles has 45 electric fire trucks that take 10 hours to recharge
A Jan. 18 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims firefighters in Los Angeles rely on electric fire trucks that take hours to recharge.
“(Forty-five) of Los Angeles fire trucks have to go back to the fire department for 10 hours a day to recharge instead of fighting fires after refueling in 7 minutes,” reads the post. “This is why electric vehicles don’t belong anywhere near public safety services.”
It was shared more than 2,000 times in four days. Similar posts were shared on X, Facebook and Instagram.
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Our rating: False
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department has said the claim is false. The department has a single electric fire engine, acquired in 2022, and it has no electric fire trucks.
Claim that LAFD has 45 electric fire trucks is wrong, spokesperson says
Margaret Stewart, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson, told Lead Stories that the claim is false.
“There are not 45 electric fire trucks in Los Angeles across all of the fire departments,” Stewart said in an email.
The Los Angeles Fire Department has one electric fire engine, but it does not have any electric fire trucks – a different type of vehicle, Stewart said.
There are no reputable media reports of the LA fire department having such a volume of electric vehicles, much less details about a 10-hour charging cycle. Paste BN reached out to the department for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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On May 14, 2022, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley announced the arrival of the department’s first electric fire engine, which was expected to enter service at Station 82 in Hollywood, according to a Los Angeles Fire Department news release.
The vehicle, a Rosenbauer RTX, is powered by two batteries with a charge capacity of 100 kilowatt hours that allows for “fully electric operation for roughly two hours,” and it also has a diesel generator that can be used for “extended operations,” an earlier news release says.
A fire engine is typically used to carry firefighters to the scene of an emergency, along with a variety of tools used for firefighting and other types of emergencies, according to the California Fire Prevention Organization. A fire truck, on the other hand, can usually be identified by the long aerial ladders used to fight large fires or for certain types of medical emergencies.
In early January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news release that more than 7,500 firefighting and emergency personnel had been deployed in response to the wildfires, as well as hundreds of emergency vehicles of different types from agencies in California and other nearby states.
Paste BN reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources
- Lead Stories, Jan. 20, Fact Check: Los Angeles Does NOT Rely On 45 Electric Firetrucks That Must Charge For 10 Hours Every Day
- Los Angeles Fire Department, May 14, 2022, LAFD Chief Debuts Arrival of First Electric Fire Engine
- Los Angeles Fire Department, Feb. 10, 2020, LAFD Purchasing First Electric Fire Engine in North America
- California Fire Prevention Organization, accessed Jan. 22, Fire Apparatus
- Governor Gavin Newsom, Jan. 8, More than 7,500 firefighting, emergency personnel deployed to fight unprecedented Los Angeles fires
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