Firefighters continue to battle the calamitous wildfires in Los Angeles, with the two largest blazes, the Palisades and Eaton fires, contained at 72 and 95 percent, respectively.
Social media users across X, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram have claimed that efforts to contain the fires have been hindered because the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) uses a fleet of electric trucks. “45 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,” one post said, adding, “this is why electric vehicles don’t belong anywhere near public safety services.”
In a since-deleted tweet, actor James Woods shared the viral claim, tweeting, “A) is this true? B) if so, were lives lost?” A screenwriter with nearly 60,000 followers on X tweeted the image too, and said, “I’m a Tesla stock owner but electric vehicles don’t belong in public service.”
The claim is almost entirely false. The LAFD has only one electric fire truck in its fleet, the Rosenbauer RTX, which it acquired in May 2022. The electric firefighting vehicle does not need to be charged for 10 hours a day, and stores energy sufficient for most missions. For extreme cases, it is equipped with both an electric and gas backup energy source.
Rosenbauer America—a subsidiary of Rosenbauer, the Austria-based company that produced the RTX—confirmed that the LAFD has only one electric firetruck. “To set the record straight: the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) currently operates one Rosenbauer RTX electric fire engine—the only electric fire engine in their fleet,” Todd McBride, the Rosenbauer America RTX program manager, told The Dispatch Fact Check.
McBride explained that the electric fire truck remains plugged in and charged at the fire station when not responding to a call. Because most operations are neither a daylong endeavor nor a great distance away, the energy stored in the vehicle’s battery is generally more than enough to power the Rosenbauer RTX through a mission. “Most incidents involve 20–30 minutes of operational time and minimal driving (typically under 2.5 miles from the station),” McBride said. “After responding to one or two calls, the truck is plugged in upon returning to the station.”
But what about longer missions, such as the wildfires plaguing southern California, where firefighters may not have the time to return to the fire station and stand idle while the vehicle recharges? The Rosenbauer RTX’s has two forms of backup systems, McBride said. It has an electric onboard generator that automatically recharges the vehicle’s battery when it drops below 20 percent, and by a 33-gallon fuel tank. The fuel tank, he added, can provide an additional four to eight hours of operation based on energy consumption and can be refueled on-site.
The LAFD was the first fire station in the country to operate an electric fire truck, though stations in nearby Rancho Cucamonga, as well as Minnesota and Colorado, have recently acquired a Rosenbauer RTX too.
The Dispatch Fact Check reached out to the city of Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department for comment.
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