The original script, written before the terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001, set the events in New York.
As part of a preparation for the movie, Joaquin Phoenix trained for a month at a fire academy and spent another month with the men of Baltimore's Truck 10. He became an "honorary member" and had the same tattoo as the men of the company, a bumble bee wearing a fire helmet with an ax.
Joaquin Phoenix was so afraid of heights before shooting this film that he could not even slide down the 20-foot fire pole. After he finished training he hung off the side of a 20-story building by a single repelling rope.
The scene in which John Travolta talks to Joaquin Phoenix while drinking liquor was improvised by Travolta. The scene originally had Mike Kennedy talking straight to Jack Morrison, but Travolta thought it would be funny to start drinking right in the middle of it.
At the beginning of the film, the Third Alarm assignment to the large warehouse fire was given the location of Newgate and Newkirk Streets, which is the exact location of that very building that was burning.
Every fire scene in the film depicts an actual firefighting incident somewhere in the USA. The scene where Jack Morrison is rescuing the civilian trapped on the 20th story ledge was an incident in New York City, where an acquaintance of Tim Guinee (Tony Corrigan) was rescued by firefighters in the same exact manner.
Mark Yant (Lt. Yant) is an actual firefighter with the Baltimore City Fire Department and personally trained the cast and crew at the Fire Academy during the production of the film.
More than 2,000 real-life firefighters showed up at casting in Baltimore, some from as far away as North Carolina. For the filming of the two funeral scenes, more than 800 real-life firefighters and fire trucks from up and down the East Coast, from as far as Massachusetts, made the trek to participate. The website www.firehouse.com coordinated the participation of the firefighters and fire vehicles for those scenes.
Stephen Lang was initially a top candidate for the lead role, he was in the midst of playing a fire captain in Jim Simpson's "The Guys" in the Flea Theatre. However he lost out once John Travolta expressed interest in the project.
The filming of the big warehouse scene caused something of a panic in Baltimore. The fire was visible from I-95 and the Baltimore Beltway, so Good Samaritans kept calling the fire department to report it. So many people called that the fire department ended up calling radio stations to confess that the scene was being filmed and to request that people stop tying up the emergency lines.
Martin O'Malley, who plays the Mayor, is the real Mayor of Baltimore and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
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