If the police force is the most well-equipped public service in LEGO City in terms of size, then the firefighter team would surely come as second. We've seen several fire sets in the $10/10€ price range throughout the history of the theme, most of which were off-road, 4x4 type vehicles (7942, 60247, 60279), so one may wonder: could there be anything new under the sun? Let's see...

Box and instructions

We have a standard 10-bucks-set-sized box, on which the new computer-generated images still feel cheap and ugly compared to the earlier real photographs - same goes for the standardised white cover of the instruction booklet, which is a good ink-saver this way nonetheless. The instructions tell a full story: first we build the firewoman, then the tree, from which she tries to lure down the poor kitten with a fish. But the tree catches fire, so we need to move quickly and build the fire truck to tackle the flames - I found this rather cute :D More experienced builders can read the instructions by looking at only every second or third page (I get it that it is for the lower end of the 5+ age range, it is just interesting to compare it with 10-20 years ago when sets with a similar age range had half as many pages as today).

Minifig(s)

The only minifig is a firefighter with the newish neon yellow helmet - I'm glad it's included in such a small set like this. For City collectors, this may be just another firefighter, but it is nicely decorated nonetheless. (The glasses are strange to me though - wouldn't that be uncomfortable for her to wear the helmet and her glasses at the same time?) The cute little kitten (same as in the 2022 advent calendar) is another playable character and a welcome addition. (Little guy must be starving if the firewoman could lure him down with a fish twice as big as him!)

The builds

The tree is nothing special, as it uses arch bricks that can be commonly seen in other brick-built trees, but it does the job. The yellow foliage suggests that the dry autumn leaves were the reason of the whole trouble.

For the vehicle, I like that it is 4 studs wide, I've always found 6-wide passenger cars too big for minifig scale. Instead of being built on the standard City vehicle base, the vehicle's core structure is shaped brilliantly with standard, round and modified plates, which gives it a great detail for this size and age range. The finished vehicle is shaped nicely, the usual red colour looks fresh with this little splash of neon yellow. My only complaint goes for the upper backlights: tossing a 1x4 trans-red tile underneath the roof leaves a small gap in between, which feels unfinished this way. Honestly, the provided accessories feel a bit lacklustre: the ladder is too small for being very useful, and I'd have preferred a simple fire extinguisher instead of this futuristic water pistol, but it adds some playability to the set I guess. (The shootable 'water' pieces are cleverly stored in a box at the back of the vehicle.) And for the turning action feature - we have seen it before, but it's another playability-increasing function.

The completed model and verdict

All components come together nicely, resulting in a nice little playset. Lots of useful pieces (grey kitten, leaves, small candlelight, neon yellow helmet, light blue fish), nice and unusual designs, lots of functions - it feels like the whole price point has been filled, and no expense has been spared, which is something I rarely think about a LEGO set. If we compare this fire truck to the previous off-road fire vehicles mentioned at the beginning of the review, this set not only gives a similar value, but even beats the two more recent sets in terms of content and playability for the very same price, which is a great thing in today's inflation-hit world. (Well, in fact we had a 10-20% price increase for all sets here in Hungary, but considering that basic food items like bread or butter have seen a 50-70% price increase, this can be considered quite moderate :D ). After 2019, I could not say too many positive things about the new directions where the LEGO City theme was going, but I think it really comes back in the game with the $10/10€ sets this year. This set may not bring much new to the table if you've been collecting City sets for years, but it is definitely a recommended set if you want a small boost for your local firefighter team.