"Chicago Fire" - Your Reviews

Will you be watching the premier of NBC's Chicago Fire?

Let us know what you thought of it.

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Permalink Reply by Ron King (Fire Chief) on October 11, 2012 at 9:16pm

Not very good. give it a five.

Permalink Reply by Ron Briggs on October 11, 2012 at 11:22pm

I liked it for the most part but disliked the drug use part by part of the personnel. Other than that, I really liked it.

Permalink Reply by Moose on October 12, 2012 at 10:34am

I agree with you Cap.

The story line in the episode was good, it portrayed what firefighters and firefighter/medics have to go through in their personal lives in order to do the job.  Sure we have addictions, and bad sides, everyone does.  I think that people will watch this and see that we need some help, some better benefits to deal with the issues instead of stealing drugs (which by the way was for some type of chronic pain he had in his arm) and turning alcoholic.

The show was obviously not accurate, as John mentioned its difficult to show accuracy in what we do, if they did the screen would be black for the fire scenes...what kind of entertainment is that?   I think I will give it a few more episodes to see what happens, and see if the story lines and plots become stupid and detatched from the fire service side of things and delve more into the personal home issues instead of seeing fire and rescue scenes, and fire department issues dealt with.  THATS what I think any show about firefighting should show, the issues like training hours, budgets and equipment issues, staffing issues and stuff that will show the public that we really need more budget money instead of staffing cuts and less money.  Maybe if they even have an episode that shows an entire family loose their lives because a station was shut down and another crew from farther away had to respond and couldnt get there fast enough, or a firefighter get hurt bad because their engine received staffing cuts and there wasnt enough to do the job safely.

We will see though.  For now, I give it a 6 on a scale of 10 for entertainment value. 

Permalink Reply by Eric Yunginger on October 12, 2012 at 1:36pm

Gotta agree with Moose.  To me it seemed like an awful lot of the episode was just setting up story lines for later in the series.  So far, we have:


1) LODD of a supposedly well-liked member of the department

2) New probie/candidate getting thrown into the house mix

3) Said new probie being there to take the place of aforementioned lost brother

4) Inter-house conflict between truck and rescue

5) Firefighter hitting rock bottom (losing house to foreclosure)

6) Firefighter's personal relationship on the rocks (I got the impression they were hinting the failure of the relationship was a byproduct of the death of his buddy)

7) Chief's personal struggles with a police officer who had an affair with his wife

8) Drug use by FF

9) Possibly something involving the sexual orientation of the paramedic

Now, I know character development is important, as well as setting the scene/back story, but it sure felt like they tried to cram a LOT into the pilot episode.  Several of those points above could have easily been written into the story 2-3 (or more) episodes down the line - let us "get to know" the story and characters instead of "Here it is.. pay attention".  Hopefully in the next weeks, they ease up on the development and start diving into a plot.

I'll give it a few weeks before passing judgement.

Permalink Reply by mike carroll on October 12, 2012 at 4:31pm

Hope our TV station takes this showing.Keep safe. 

Permalink Reply by Mike Ellis on October 13, 2012 at 12:29am

Unfortunately, I was disappointed again.  After the show, I sent word out to "forget everything that you saw tonight on Chicago Fire".  The blatant safety violations are in direct conflict w/NFPA, OSHA & NIOSH recomendations.  It is such a shame, that the writers & technical advisors CHOSE to do, what is known nationally, by decades of established safety procedures.  Just a few issues :

*  Removing the nose cup from SCBA facepieces, just so you can see the actor's faces better.  It's hard to imagine that SCOTT & the technical advisors would go along with this practice??

*  Actors not wearing seat-belts while responding to a scene??

*  Actors wearing helmets in the truck while responding to a scene??

*  Actors removing face pieces to rescue a downed FF??

*  Actors shooting up drugs while on duty??

*  Performing roof operations w/no SCBA??

*  etc., etc.

Maybe the next show will get some of the safety issues right??  How would it take away from the overall story line, to do things that we've all been taught to do on day one??

 

Permalink Reply by Brian Mackie on October 13, 2012 at 11:05am

actually Mike, I know what you are saying, but take a look at many of the real life on scene live videos that people take at real fire scenes.. and I think you will see everything you mentioned AND MORE, being done by real firefighters.. ok..maybe not real real.. but not actors.. ok..maybe pretending,  shit.. i guess you have a point there! lol  just sayin...

 

Permalink Reply by capcityff on October 14, 2012 at 9:33am

Are you serious?  This is a drama on NBC.  NOT a firefighter documentary.  Who cares if what they are doing is "NFPA compliant"?!?!  I don't understand some of you.  This is for entertainment purposes.  I wouldn't want to see a show on NBC that was 100% accurate.  Who would watch that?  You honestly want a boring "safe" show?

Also I find it funny that in your specific complaints you actually list things that are done often in my department and many others as well.  Other than the taking the nose cup out and doing drugs, every one of those things happens often here in DC and I'm sure Chicago as well.  No offense but you work in a volunteer department, not the CFD.  I've worked in smaller departments as well before becoming a fireman in the big city and it's a world's difference.  Nothing against smaller departments but you have to notice that there are differences.

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on October 14, 2012 at 4:30pm

I agree with Capcity here. Sure there will be issues in such a series that will anger FFs and not realistic, but this is a damn drama series, not a reality show. Yes, there will be technical differences and inaccuracies, but again, so what?

 

The reality is there are issues in the fire service and it seems many here are picturing FFs with the superhero capes and so forth and are infallable. Drug use, yeah, it does happen in the fire service, so does alcoholism, domestic abuses, and so on. That is also why there are programs like EAP, CISDs etc that are in place to help with issues. There IS a darkside in the fire service to keep seeing the critiquing of such a series. Yeah, many not like the inaccuracies, but then again....how often do we see the discussions on bringing a firefighter related series to the mainstream? And when such a drama series comes in, we see a chastise of it and calls for immediate removal.

 

Let's face it, the reality of our job is not as glamorous as some want to believe. The station life is not as involved to capture the general public's attention.....yeah not too impressed with the card playing scene, but they do show members doing maintainence etc moreso than playing cards or sitting in recliners. As for the scene realities, let's face it, in a real fire, it is black, smokey, dark, and just difficult to really adequately recreate and yet keep the general public (ratings....and paychecks) attention.

Permalink Reply by Russ on October 18, 2012 at 8:29pm

exactly my belief's cap...its television!...as an investigator i love how DNA comes back in 12 minutes instead of the month it takes in the real world

its entertainmet people, it aint gottabe real all the time

Permalink Reply by ashfire on October 21, 2012 at 10:24am

I guess the one thing about the show is the EMS procedures for rescues. First time you see a collar device is when a young girl is removed from a car that has had a window cleaner lift fall on it killing and trapping the girl on the passenger side of the car.

The removal of the driver was close to what it would be in a quick remove of a endangered patient from a car.

First show you have a auto accident where a mother and daughter removed without collars and backboard devices but someone in my dept said the girl had a extend jugular but I would question that one for not using a collar device or supporting  the neck in some way and ask a patient can you move your head. Then the construstion accident, worker being put in a basket without  a collar. I guess there were walking wounded that could climb a ladder out of the hole after the floor fell out from under them.

The one procedure I was wondering about was during the construction accident is using a charged 2 1/2 hose off a aerial ladder as a slide pole to get down in a hole.

Would it be a good procedure or not?

As for personnel lifes of firefighters I would guess there are many ways of life out there and most of us have seen it or experienced it or heard the rumors about someone. 

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on October 21, 2012 at 11:07pm

I agree with the lack of stabalization in the EMS stuff, but oh well, we know this is not reality based. I have talked with a couple non-FF friends who watch this and really folks, it is the drama aspect of the series, not the technical and realistic sentiment we see FFs harping on. Yeah I agree with most, but then again, I bet most here griping against this series are still tuning in each week.

 

That was my generalization rant:

The one procedure I was wondering about was during the construction accident is using a charged 2 1/2 hose off a aerial ladder as a slide pole to get down in a hole.

Would it be a good procedure or not?

I have to say I was a bit impressed with the use of the hoseline as a pole. Using a charged line to access a downed FF a floor below, is actually a RIT technique.

 

I don't agree with the procedure in the realm it was used in the series, because a ground ladder would be better used. A hoseline provides no means of egress, like a ladder does and to use a line in such a way would be unacceptable. Considering the angle of the aerial, a ground ladder could be taken up that way and handed off to crews if needed. HOWEVER, the site is unstable, there needs to be a size up and work accordinly. For the most part, I would bet there is another way to access from below and you shore your way to the victim(s).

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