The Heat Is On

Five seasons, three spinoffs and countless rescues later, Chicago Fire is still red-hot.

- Ileane Rudolph

Five years ago, during the filming of the Chicago Fire pilot, legendary producer Dick Wolf was standing on a bridge over the Chicago River with Wolf Films president Peter Jankowski. “I said to him, ‘I can see an interconnected police show here and possibly several more behind that,’ ” Wolf recalls. The Windy City mother ship, as Wolf describes Fire, “was the perfect starting point because the characters are likable, they interact with police, victims go to the hospital and some of them end up in court.”

Flash forward half a decade. The police drama Chicago P.D., hospital-set Chicago Med and new law series Chicago Justice are all sturdy hits for NBC. With Fire leading the way, the dramas are four of the top seven highest-rated scripted shows on the network.

It’s not surprising that Chicago Fire is the most popular. After all, who doesn’t love firefighters? “These guys are brave enough to run into burning buildings that rats are running out of,” says executive producer Derek Haas.

That courage is on full display in a scene from the April 25 episode that’s being filmed on a snowy March day in Chicago. Lt. Matt Casey (Jesse Spencer) has rushed into a smoke-filled tunnel to try to rescue another company’s overcome firefighters. He has only a few minutes to save them, since a gas leak could cause the site to blow at any time. One of those inside turns out to be Jason Kannell (Rosewood’s Kamal Angelo Bolden)—a friend of Casey’s from his old neighborhood—who has stayed in the tunnel to find his missing colleagues.