Juneau’s airport at risk of sudden shutdown due to lack of fire vehicles, manager says

Two of three city-owned ARFF trucks aren’t operating, Assembly members told; airport can only accept smaller planes with one available truck, must halt flights if no trucks available

An Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) truck participates in a Capital City Fire/Rescue emergency rescue simulation in 2021. (City and Borough of Juneau photo)

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

Juneau International Airport needs another specialized fire truck — quickly — since problems with two of the three existing trucks means the airport will have to shut down if there’s only one truck in service and it gets a flat tire, Assembly members were told Wednesday.

The airport is borrowing trucks from two other cities for now, Airport Manager Andres Delgado said during an Assembly Finance Committee meeting. But he said disruptions for some flights have occurred in recent weeks because malfunctions resulting in only one working truck limited the size of airplanes allowed at the airport, and the planes Alaska Airlines generally sends to Juneau exceed that size.

Smaller planes the airline is trying to phase out were sent instead — resulting in delays and rebookings for some passengers — but a much larger problem was looming during that time, he said.

"What that meant for the community, for a brief moment, was that had that truck — the remaining truck — gotten a flat tire we would have been at what's called an ‘ARFF-zero’ status, which means no air carrier service to Juneau," Delgado said.

ARFF stands for Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicles, which carry large-capacity water and chemical extinguishers for plane fires, and have all-terrain capabilities so they can access unpaved areas near runways. Juneau’s airport has three with model years of 2016, 2003 and 1992.

"The 2003 model is permanently out of service," Delgado told the Assembly members. "The 1992 model has been surplused, and so to replace those two trucks we have a leased truck from the City of Palmer and we are borrowing, thank goodness, a 2014 truck from Gustuvas."

However, "we had a bit of a scare these past couple weeks when we lost two of those trucks," he said. The 2016 truck and one borrowed from Palmer each had issues with their turrets used to direct spray — which the Federal Aviation requires to be functional for a truck to be in service — and the latter also has problems with its pump seals.

The loss of those two trucks meant Juneau’s airport dropped from "Index C" status, which allows aircraft up to 158 feet in length, to "Index B" status, which sets the limit at 125 feet, Delgado said. Alaska Airlines planes serving Juneau generally consist of 737 Max-9s (138 feet 4 inches), 737-900s (148 feet), 737-800s (129 feet 6 inches).

When Juneau’s airport dropped to Index B status the remaining option was 737-700 models (110 feet 4 inches), "that Alaska is looking to phase out," he said.

"It took a lot of coordination with them, a lot of notifications going out in the middle of the night, but we made it work for that week," Delgado said.

Juneau is scheduled to get a new ARFF coming off the assembly line in April, but it will take several weeks for the vehicle to reach Juneau, and then staff will have to equip and train to properly use the vehicle, he said.

"It will be June, maybe early July, before that truck is placed in service," Delgado said. "The Gustavus rig, meanwhile, has to be back and in service in Gustavus by May 1, which means it leaves Juneau in early April, if not late March. So that leaves two trucks — our 2016 rig and our city of Palmer rig — in service, and that have now proven to be troublesome."

Delgado said airport officials want to purchase another ARFF truck quickly, but that isn’t necessarily easy.

"We recently had a window opportunity to purchase one and it was sold in two days," he said, adding "obviously the procurement methods for the City and Borough of Juneau aren’t that fast."

That concern was discussed by city and airport officials last week, and there are options allowing a quick purchase, such as the city’s fleet reserve fund, CBJ Finance Director Angie Flick told the Assembly.

"We would have sufficient expenditure authority or budget authority to make a quick turnaround purchase and then come back to the Assembly through an ordinance if we needed to address a need there to take care of the rest of the city," she said.

The airport, which has its own budget and empowered board of directors, would be expected to reimburse CBJ for the purchase, Flick noted.

The Assembly Finance Committee, which was told about the ARFF situation as part of a briefing about the airport’s budget drafting process for the coming fiscal year that starts July 1, didn’t take any formal action involving a potential purchase. But members said they do support the airport’s efforts to resolve the situation.

"I understand the urgency of needing to act immediately," Assembly Member Maureen Hall told Delgado and other airport officials at the meeting. "Deputy Manager (Robert) Barr has been keeping us informed and stressing the urgency of all of this."

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.