As a long time fire station Lego collector, I’ve seen them all and I think I might have virtually every Lego fire station in existence. So imagine how pumped up I was in seeing this 2013’s newest edition: 60004. Entitled simply “Fire Station”, 60004 quite possibly is the most epic Lego fire station ever made. Certainly by the price, this set is the most expensive to date. At 752 pieces, it might very well be the largest fire station in the history of Lego (I really don’t want to count the other major one a few years back that interconnects with the other mega downtown city set themes; I thought that wasn’t truly representative of most Lego fire stations). Regardless, this set deserves its own review by the sheer scale.
Ever since Town Junior made its mark many years ago, it seems that Lego decided to move into the opposite direction after scathing criticism and the fear that Lego was becoming too simplistic. Since that point, the fire stations have grown steadily in size and complexity. I believe the last 2-3 re-introduced the garage elements. What 60004 has done is culminate in every element of all fire stations into the mega complex that many of us hardcore Lego fire station fanatics have been waiting for. And it sure has not disappointed.
Let’s start off with the paramedic unit. The mode for this vehicle follows other recent paramedic vehicles. The rear can be lifted open in holding an oxygen mask and tank. The driver though is a female, which is something new in concept since older sets had suggested women were more in the office. Now, we’re seeing women figures take more active roles in these sets.
The next major component is the helicopter. I believe the last fire station was missing a fire helicopter, which is why it felt smaller in some respects. However, this set has one and makes it quite complete in terms of all the varying elements that Lego has introduced over the years to fire stations. The chopper itself isn’t anything special, only serving as an air unit with a single hose to put out fires from the sky.
For the last of the vehicles included in this set, we have an aerial ladder styled truck. I was a bit ambivalent on this truck. This year, we’ve seen several other very similar sets added into the mix. I was somewhat surprised that Lego decided to go this route. While this component does not outshine 60002, it does seem redundant in comparison to 60003. Part of me wishes that Lego had done something different for one of those sets as they share too similar features without any particular one standing out.
What really stands out for me are not the vehicles but the station itself. The station has so much detail and contains all the cliches Lego has developed over the years and then some. For instance, we see the prototypical fire Dalmatian along with a box filled with flames (strange element but hey it’s different; maybe they use it for practice?)
The bottom floor of the station contains the main “office”. Here, I planted the fire chief to manage the calls and monitor any alerts that occur on the map. Off to the side, we can see a small trolley which contains several tools. This is one element that is new to the fire station genre.
Compared to the top and bottom floors, the second floor is somewhat bland. It’s main purpose, inside of the tower that is, is to hold spare tools. My one complaint about this floor is that it also is used to hold the helicopter platform. Unfortunately, there are no doors that lead to the helipad. Instead, Lego somewhat cheeses this by leaving the office side open. I find this detail a big subtraction since we’ve seen older police stations with doors leading to their helipads. If this section had a wall, I would probably scream.
The top floor is the dining “hall”. It contains a small sink and stove. There’s even a little hot dog you can cook over a frying pan (how ironic). On the back of the box, one of the funny little stories Lego tells is how a fire man is lounging in the rear, waiting for the next call. Like the 2nd floor of the tower, this floor also leaves one side of the building exposed. Unlike the 2nd floor though, this seems to have no purpose outside of cheap summer air conditioning.
One element that took me by surprise was the sliding pole. I should clarify that “surprise” for me was seeing how the 2nd and 3rd floors had one exposed window frame. The slide element made sense for this aspect and reminded me of another fire station that had a similar structure a few years ago.
Overall, I found this set to be one of my personally anticipated sets of all time. A few years ago I had mentioned in another blog post about how Lego was leading towards an epic fire station. This set feels as though Lego has throughout its career created the ultimate fire station. It feels as close to perfect as you can expect. While I do have a few complaints, they are completely drowned in favor of a great design and meeting all expectations coming from the hefty $110 price tag.
The question that comes out of this is “Can Lego beat this?” That is highly subjective. I think Lego can continue creating permutations of this type of set. Outside of my quips, my three ideas for improving upon this set would be to have a bedroom, a third garage for another set (since there was only one set in the history of Lego fire stations that ever had more than two garages for its vehicles) and making the set more modular by allowing sections of the set to be interconnected with other small fire station garage type of components.
That said, design-wise, there’s not a lot of room elsewhere. I hope that Lego eventually comes up with a similar set for a hospital. I feel that all the types of sets that Lego has come up with for town should have a once-in-a-lifetime-minimum treatment where they receive an epic design. Glad to see that the fire station finally got its due.
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