The Airport Fire Truck That Runs on Electricity and Gets There 28% Faster

Most people who fly don't think about the fire trucks standing by at the end of every runway. But here's something worth knowing: if an airport fire truck is unavailable, flights get delayed or diverted until coverage is restored.

Those trucks have run on diesel for decades. The Oshkosh Striker Volterra is changing that — and doing it without slowing anything down.

Why This Matters at an Airport

Airport firefighting vehicles operate under one hard rule: reach any point on the runway within three minutes. That's a global standard set by both NFPA 414 and ICAO, and there's no flexibility in it.

For years, meeting that standard meant diesel engines running constantly. Standby and idling operations account for roughly 60% of an ARFF vehicle's lifespan — meaning firefighters spend most of their working hours breathing diesel exhaust inside their own station. Meanwhile airports are under real pressure to cut emissions across their entire operation.
The Striker Volterra addresses both problems without compromising either.

How It Works

The truck runs on a combination of onboard batteries and a diesel engine, managed by a patented Oshkosh transmission that switches between them automatically.

At the station, it operates entirely on battery power — zero emissions during entry, exit, and up to one hour of standby without the engine running at all.

When a call comes in, both power sources combine. The result is 0-50 mph in 25 seconds fully loaded — 28% faster than a conventional diesel ARFF. That speed improvement isn't a marketing number. At an aircraft emergency, getting there faster directly affects what's survivable.

The firefighting hardware underneath is unchanged: a 3,000-gallon water tank, a 420-gallon foam tank, a 2,000-gallon-per-minute pump, and TAK-4 independent suspension. Pump and roll works at any speed. Stationary pumping can run indefinitely on the diesel engine. Nothing about the firefighting side was compromised to make the electric side work.

Regenerative braking converts deceleration into electricity, recharging batteries and reducing brake wear over time. And because the Volterra operates identically to the conventional Striker from the driver's seat, no additional training is required for existing crews.

Already Working at One of the World's Busiest Airports

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is among the first US airports to deploy electric ARFF technology at operational scale. The vehicles there aren't prototypes sitting in a hangar — they're active, responding to real calls at an airport handling millions of passengers.

CES 2026 recognized the Striker Volterra with a Best of Innovation award in the Travel and Tourism category — the first time an airport firefighting vehicle has appeared at that show in that context. Oshkosh brought DFW's actual truck to the Las Vegas Convention Center floor.

Oshkosh has nearly 30 years of electrification experience behind this vehicle — which is part of why the Striker Volterra works as well as it does in a setting where a prototype attitude isn't acceptable.