The District of Columbia took delivery of six new pumper engines this month as part of $34 million investment to improve its emergency response fleet.

The six pumper engines will be placed in service once employee training is completed this month. Four additional pumper engines are expected be delivered by the end of December. In addition, five new ladder trucks are expected to be put in service by March 2015.

For fiscal-year 2014, the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department (FEMS) was allocated $24 million in capital funds to purchase new ambulances, fire engines, and other apparatus through fiscal-year 2016. FEMS received an additional $5 million for equipment in both fiscal-year 2015 and 2016, bringing the total for new equipment from fiscal-year 2014 to 2016 to $34 million.

In 2013, FEMS was critiqued for the state of its aging fleet. The same year, the district purchased 30 new ambulances.