- Accidental Aesop: Never park your car next to a fire hydrant. You'll receive a fine for illegal parking and in the worse case scenario, you risk having broken windows on your vehiclenote .
- Adaptation Displacement: Was a box office success when it was first released, but had fallen into obscurity over the years. It would have been forgotten about entirely had it not been for the pyrotechnics show at Universal Studiosnote keeping it in public consciousness.
- Aluminum Christmas Trees:
- None of the firefighters wear turnout trousers to protect their legs, which may look like an error, but it's actually because Chicago didn't wear that gear until 2006. Instead, they wore a long coat and hip boots, or three-quarter boots. It was an older style of firefighting gear used in North America in most of the 20th century that consisted of a coat that went to the knees and a pair of rubber boots that had foldable sections that could be pulled up to the thigh. Most cities switched to modern gear in the 1990s, such as New York City,
◊ which switched in 1994, and Boston,◊ which switched a year later. Chicago was the last to switch. - Due to the Chicago Fire Department's stubborn adherence to this type of protective equipment, firefighters colloquially refer to these boots as "Chicago Boots."
- Strangely enough, one thing the characters do manage to do wrong, especially Steven McCaffery, leaves their boots rolled down inside burning buildings, a BIG no-no back when firefighters commonly wore this gear since it leaves the legs even less protected than they already inherently were with this type of gear.
- None of the firefighters wear turnout trousers to protect their legs, which may look like an error, but it's actually because Chicago didn't wear that gear until 2006. Instead, they wore a long coat and hip boots, or three-quarter boots. It was an older style of firefighting gear used in North America in most of the 20th century that consisted of a coat that went to the knees and a pair of rubber boots that had foldable sections that could be pulled up to the thigh. Most cities switched to modern gear in the 1990s, such as New York City,
- Awesome Music:
- "The Show Goes On," complete with Training Montage as the engine company responds to incidents ranging from the silly (overturned chicken truck, with the firefighters gathering the stray chickens in their helmets while Bull walks around with a rather suspicious black eye) to the serious (car accident with injuries).
- Hans Zimmer's score as well, especially for the track "Show me your firetruck", which, Food Network watchers might recognize... (Sadly, the rights expired for the use of Zimmer's score, and the old episodes of Iron Chef shown in reruns now use different music.)
- The segment Burn it All is so awesome it was used in numerous trailers throughout the 90s, including Jurassic Park and Dragonheart.
- Funny Moments: Brian and Jennifer sneak into the station after a date, and start having sex on top of the folded hoses in one of the trucks. Then, naturally, a call comes in, and they end up having to stop and get dressed, still on top of the truck as it's barreling through the streets of Chicago. They almost get away with it too, but Jennifer's bra gets left tangled around the hose, and found by one of the firefighters when they arrive at the fire. Brian leans over the side of the truck, and gives an embarrassed wave.
- Just Here for Godzilla: The plot and many of the characters are very cliché. But the fire scenes are absolutely amazing!
- Nightmare Fuel: The bodies of the arson victims—including Tim, although he does live.
- One-Scene Wonder: Donald Sutherland is probably in the movie for all of fifteen minutes, but man does he make it work for him! The creepiness factor is off the scale; this is a man that truly does want to watch the world burn.
- Tear Jerker:
- The movie starts with one as seven-year-old Brian witnessed his father, Captain Dennis McCaffrey, die in a tenement fire saving Adcox's life from an imminent gas explosion.
- Stephen's death. "Who's your brother Brian"?
- Visual Effects of Awesome: Every one of those fire scenes were either done on set or with miniatures. The movie was released before it could’ve been done with convincing CGI.
- The Academy noticed, too—the film was nominated for several Oscars for its sound and visual effects, although it had the bad luck to be released in the same year as Terminator 2.
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