Chicago Fire season 12 might be ending, but filming for season 13 will start soon!

Chicago Fire season 12 will be coming to an end on May 22 with the final episode of season 12. This season has been an interesting one, to say the least for many reasons. 

Season 12 has become the shortest season in the show’s history with just 13 episodes total. This is due to the actors’ and writers’ strikes of 2023 which prevented work on the new season from being started until the end of the year. Because of this, Chicago Fire and the One Chicago shows did not kick off their new seasons in the fall as new seasons typically do and instead arrived at the top of the new year. 

In addition to a delayed start to the season and a shortened episode count, the season has been full of cast departures. This season we’ve said goodbye to several key members of the cast including Alberto Rosende, Kara Killmer, and Eamonn Walker, who departs the series after 12 seasons as a series regular in the season finale. 

Needless to say, it’s been a strange season and as the season draws to a close, we’re already starting to look ahead to the next season which is going to be starting sooner than some might expect! 

Chicago Fire season 13 begins filming in July

According to our friends over at Screen Magazine, NBC will begin production on the next season of Chicago Fire sometime in mid-July! That’s right, work on the next season will begin less than two months after the season 12 finale airs on May 22 as NBC looks to return to a normal production cycle for the next season. 

We still don’t know how many episodes season 13 will consist of, but the expectation is that the show will return to its usual episode count in the 20-22 episode range next season. We also know that the plan is to have the three One Chicago shows return in the fall which means NBC will want to begin prepping the new seasons in time for their release in late September, thus why production will begin in July. 

By kicking off season 13 in July, the cast and crew can begin working on the new season on a more standard production schedule as most broadcast series typically begin production in the middle of the summer. This allows the network to prep enough episodes in time for the show's premiere. 

We’ll definitely be counting down the days until Chicago Fire and the One Chicago shows return in the fall as the season finale is sure to leave us on the edge of our seats with more than a few cliffhangers to process over the summer!