BATON ROUGE - Holden-based truck manufacturer Ferrera Fire Apparatus is named in a lawsuit filed by the city of Baton Rouge, along with its parent company, Rev Group, Pierce Manufacturing LLC, its parent company, Oshkosh Corporation, plus Rosenbauer America.

The truck manufacturers are all members of the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association. The lawsuit claims the group unlawfully worked together to raise the price on fire trucks and suppress the fire truck supply in the state of Louisiana.

Court documents claim the city purchased a total of 20 fire trucks from two of those companies listed in the suit since 2016, 18 from Ferrara and two from Pierce, which they believe were part of the alleged scheme.

Leading the City of Baton Rouge to pay significantly more and wait even longer to get the fire trucks needed. Which, according to the lawsuit, left fire trucks that should have been retired at 15 or 20 years old still in use, some hitting 30 years.

We asked former State Fire Marshal and West Baton Rouge Fire Chief Butch Browning how having outdated equipment can impact operations at any fire department.

"That is probably outside of personnel and staffing is probably the biggest issue facing not only fire departments in the capital area, but I'd say nationwide, and that's the replacement of trucks," Browning said.

Browning says if a fire truck is not in tip-top shape, it can affect the ability to get to the call and the fire insurance rating.

"When you don't have the apparatus in the stations that's required because they're broken down, or because they can't be repaired, it can affect your rating; you can actually see a higher rating, which can cause people to pay more for fire insurance," Browning said.

We reached out to the attorney for the city-parish in this suit; we have not heard back yet. We also reached out to all the truck manufacturers listed in the suit for comment; they have not responded.