This is the first post in a series of four about the 118 firehouse on 9-1-1, including floor plans, screen shots, and detailed discussion.
The other posts in this series:
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
My other floor plans:
Diaz House | Buck's Loft | Madney House
They're also on my Ao3
Overview
Broadly speaking I’ll start by talking about the actual building, then move on to discuss the model I built, then I’ll go into detail by section/room, starting with the stuff I’m absolutely certain about, then stuff that’s less cut and dry, and finally stuff that’s purely theoretical at this point, along with some extras.
Here we have a bird's eye view of the entire thing, both upstairs and downstairs. There will be additional close up bird's eye views of each individual section when I discuss them in detail throughout the posts.
The Real Building
First, let’s talk about the actual real life building that they film in. The firehouse set lives in a converted warehouse in Glendale, which makes that line from The Bachelor scene in s7e04 an extremely funny (to me) meta joke.
As for dimensions, the building is 60 feet wide and roughly 165 feet long. She’s big y’all. For scale, here are both Eddie and Buck’s living spaces inside the firehouse:
Below are some grungy google maps exterior shots for your viewing pleasure. I’m particularly delighted by the graffiti on the front garage door that reads: Don’t call 911. BAKE! (wake & bake)
It's here that I need to be pedantic about the roof. As you can see, this building has a sloped roof. That little smaller bit that pokes out the top is called a monitor and it allows for clerestory windows to let daylight into the full length of the building. This sloped roof is held up inside by massive wood trusses which feature very prominently in many of the interior shots. Below are some example screen shots. I have passive aggressively highlighted the slope of the interior roof. Also, you can see the monitor roof with all the windows in it.
Obviously they cannot hang out in lawn chairs on top of this roof. They film all the roof scenes at the Fox studios lot. You can tell by the surrounding buildings visible in the background of those shots. Note Fox Plaza (the Die Hard building) behind Athena below.
Additionally, it’s not always the same roof. I’ve highlighted two of the buildings I’m certain or mostly certain about below. I also labeled Stage 6 toward the top left of the image, which was the 9-1-1 sound stage through season 8.
I have a mental workaround that allows me to reconcile these conflicting roof situations that I’ll explain in depth toward the end of all this, because it’s also relevant to a couple other things too.
Also, this isn’t relevant to anything really, but I need to say that at no point in this entire process did I notice any evidence of climate control systems in the building, and there also appears to be zero insulation. So I cannot imagine this place is comfortable to film in a lot of the time. They seem to always have huge fans in bts videos during the summer, and I imagine it’s pretty chilly in there during winter filming. Thank god for the temperate Los Angeles weather, I suppose.
The Exterior
As far as the exterior goes, three sides of the building are exposed, and one wall is shared with the building next door.
The front facade in the show is mostly red brick and is completely computer generated. There’s a side alleyway that has like an engine hoist or something? I am not a mechanical expert. Sometimes the hose racks are out there, etc.
Also, when Buck was going insane and ordering basketballs to the station and suggesting they get a hoop, I could have sworn they already had one in the side alley, and sure enough, I wasn’t insane. It’s there in the background of Hen Begins. I guess canonically, it's gone by the time Buck’s losing his marbles, but at least I have proof I didn’t lose mine.
Around the back is an extremely tall wall covered with greenery. There’s also a few trees and other planters and what seems to be a pretty nice sitting area with concrete benches, but those might belong to the building next door.
About The 3D Model I Built
I built the model in a program called Chief Architect. I first started this project in *checks notes* March?? of 2022. However, then it kind of fell by the wayside for a while, gathering digital dust. When I started working on it in earnest again last year, I added updated screen shots to my reference files up through s7e05. So the model I built is accurate through that point.
Things like wall decor and various props will not necessarily match to current seasons. But they change that stuff pretty regularly between seasons anyway, so it’s not technically fully accurate to any one season.
There’s really not much that’s different in s8, so it’s not a big deal, but, where relevant, I’ve noted a few things I’ve noticed off hand while watching the episodes as they aired.
The dimensions and angles of everything are reasonably accurate. And the roof trusses are accurate to their location within the building and their height off the floor, but I let the program auto-generate all the cross beams and I left a lot of detail above that out, like the monitor roof and the lighting.
Also, I didn’t build anything that we haven’t actually seen. So those three corners of the building downstairs are just shown as big empty rooms. Are there walls and rooms in there? Probably! Can I show you them? Nope! I've seen glimpses through some of those doors in bts videos, and it seems like they store equipment in those sections irl.
Next up, in depth exploration of the upstairs sections.
honestly Lando and Oscar are at their best when they're doing their cunty little mean girls double act. because i'm just not buying the wholesome besties or the bitter rivals thing people keep trying to go for. they're the bitchy coworkers gossiping at the back of the office and that's okay
If nobody ever explained this to you, if someone you see a lot does something you like and you never ever tell them that, they might think you don’t like them or don’t like the things they do for you.
If you like your sister’s cooking and have never ever told her that, she may very well think that you hate her cooking. If you like it when your friend drives you places and you never ever thank them, they might think you’re not grateful even if you are. If you like it when your partner does this or that thing for you they won’t know that unless you tell them.
Tell people in your life hey thanks for driving me, that was a great dinner, I like your singing, thanks for helping me with that. They don’t automatically know that you appreciate what they do.
You know it’s one thing to suspect and say it out loud and get laughed at, and it’s a completely different thing to be proved right.
I lost count last year how many times I said, well ever since Miami 2024, that Oscar was chasing Mark’s ghosts.
Because we know now that the reality is that on one side of the garage you had Lando. Lando who knew deep down from day 1 of last season he was good enough to be World Champion. He’d known it since Abu Dhabi the year before. He was surrounded by his best friend (Max Fewtrell) and Will Joseph telling him almost immediately when things got tough, you know you are good enough, just do things the way you know you can do them. He had George and Carlos shouting down the media. He had Seb and Lewis just telling him to keep doing what he was doing, he was good enough.
But on the other side of the garage we now know paranoia was being instilled. They will force you to be a number 2 driver. If he wins a championship before you, they will instantly treat you as the number 2. Question every time he gets ahead of you, show them you’re not going to settle for second best. Always assume your teammate will stab you in the back. Put yourself first regardless of what the team say. Make sure there is consequences if you feel you aren’t being treated equally. You can imagine it went on and on.
All that pressure and paranoia to put on a 23/24 year old in only his second and third season of F1. Is it any wonder that when it started going sideways for Oscar he wasn’t able to wipe the slate clean mentally and go again at the next race? What that constant doom on the horizon if you fail narrative did to Oscar’s mental state is really awful to think about, but we saw it after Monza last year. He started to believe it had happened. And it was painful. He lacked the water off a duck’s back attitude Lando and Max had.
Thankfully (I say unironically) the Austin sprint race happened. He crashed into his teammate and DNF’d them both. And all that happened? Lando had any consequences ridiculously dished out for what happened in Canada and Singapore removed, and they were told in no uncertain terms that if they carried on like this, neither of them was going to win the title.
Mexico and Brazil happened, Oscar lost the lead, Lando looked unstoppable, Max was closing in and still he’s not told to be a number 2 driver. His championship chance isn’t taken away from him. Vegas and Qatar there was no favouritism, the team screwed them both over equally!
You start 2026, thinking here it comes, He’s the Champion I’m the wingman, and the team make it clear, nothing has changed in their eyes. You are still equal.
All that “it happened to me, it will happen to you” crap Mark has been telling him for 3 years has not come to pass. What’s more there is no indication from the dreaded teammate it will even be expected of the team.
The back end of last season it was clear to see what Oscar needed was what had dragged Lando up and out of his pit at the start of the season, support, belief, encouragement, unconditional love. And it was even clearer to see that Oscar wasn’t getting it. His support team just wasn’t giving him what he needed week in, week out. In fact Mark was out there trying to gain traction on a narrative that put all the blame on McLaren.
At the end of the day Oscar isn’t Mark and Lando is certainly not Sebastian in his “I don’t give a fuck” phase. Also as much as people hate them, Andrea and Zak are absolutely not Horner and Marko. And it’s in Oscar’s best interest, that everyone stops pretending they are.
i do think there should be more stories and shows and stuff about guys falling in love with butch women actually, i think that’d be a good thing. and not ‘this is as butch as twitter can handle’, i mean butch as can fucking be without apology, and making those boys weak in the knees about it. i think it’s great actually to have f/m romances that exist to break gender norms, too. i think it sucks that the only mainstream het romances that exist are either about women who are already feminine or with women who are just a little too scarily masculine and have to be fixed into being girlier. that’s shit.
it’s not like. taking away from queer people if you let “the straights” have some genderfuckery in their romance, too. that’s good, actually, the blurring of gender roles and performance and getting better understandings of your own sexuality is good for everyone. and it’s really fucking weird if you think that mainstream “het” romances shouldn’t feature women who are “too masculine” because that’s only allowed for queer people, somehow.
so far one theme of the 30s for me has been realizing that literally every human being on earth who appears completely cool and collected and together with it at first glance has some threshold past which enough known information about them will shatter that mystique completely. i don't even say this negatively or pessimistically it's just been helpful to keep in mind that we're all like that.
AO3 is down. Before (the modern concept of easily shareable) fan fiction was invented, do you think people had to recount their sexual fantasies about fictional characters and mythological and historical figures directly to their buddies? Do you think, once upon a time, there was a group of girls making bobbin lace in a dim room in 17th century Brittany with one of them spending hours recounting an elaborate fantasy she had about Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere and all of her friends listened enraptured and enthralled? I think so.
