Photo by volcanojw

The union representing 1,800 of the District’s firefighters and paramedics offered more evidence last weekend that some of the equipment listed by the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services is unlikely to be used to put out fires any time soon.

And one of the ladder trucks the department included in its reserve units isn’t anywhere near D.C. In fact, it’s sitting halfway across the country in a Wisconsin junkyard. (It also doesn’t have a ladder.)

The Washington Post reports that International Association of Fire Fighters Local 36, which represents most of the fire department’s workforce, ran the serial numbers on the vehicles department officials included last month in their reports to an oversight hearing by the D.C. Council. In addition to Ladder 34, which is rotting away in the Badger State, the union also found three other trucks and six engine pumpers erroneously included in the oversight report.

Another of the vehicles that shouldn’t have been listed is one with very important duties:

The broken-down fire vehicles include Foam 1, a firefighting tanker assigned to be on hand for landings of the vice president’s helicopter at his residence in Northwest Washington. The truck has been out of commission for three months, prompting the department to seek help from the U.S. Navy to secure the landing site.

Last week, an aide to Mayor Vince Gray said the union was “fabricating” claims that some of the equipment listed was out-of-service. The fire department has come under close scrutiny about the readiness of its fleet after recent incidents in which a man who suffered a heart attack died after waiting 29 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, and another in which a D.C. police officer was struck by a car and then transported to a hospital by a Prince George’s ambulance after no D.C. ambulances were available.

Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who chairs the D.C. Council committee that oversees the fire department, has scheduled a hearing for March 28.