Tonight on NBC Chicago Fire returns with an all-new Wednesday, April 16, 2025, season 13 episode 18 called, “Post-Mortem” and we have your Chicago Fire recap below.
In tonight’s Chicago Fire season 13 episode 18 as per the NBC synopsis, “Deputy Commissioner Boden returns to Firehouse 51 to investigate a disastrous firefight and the surrounding mystery that left one of their own in peril.”
Tonight’s Chicago Fire season 13 episode 18 looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it. While you’re waiting for our recap, check out all our Chicago Fire recaps, news, spoilers & more, right here!
Tonight’s Chicago Fire begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
There was a fire at a house. Several fire trucks responded to it. They searched the home. They cleared the house and so it was a mystery why one of their own got critically injured at the scene. There had to be an investigation. The Chicago Fire Department had to launch an investigation because the case received media attention. They had to look into Firehouse 51. They didn’t have any other choice and it was bound to be messy. The firehouse feared someone would be held accountable for what happened and Boden didn’t want the wrong people to be blamed. He went down 51. He told leadership about the investigation.
Boden tried to claim it would be fair. He didn’t want anyone to fear they’d be scapegoated for something they didn’t do. He normally wouldn’t have been able to keep that promise, but he was the leading the investigation. Boden spoke with everyone. He heard that Cruz was tired that day. His youngest son was going through that toddler stage where he didn’t want to sleep alone. He was keeping everyone up. Cruz was tired on the day of that call. Severide knew about it. He didn’t think it was a thing and so he took Cruz with him.
Severide admitted to everything that happened that day. He even mentioned that his little brother was looking for more shifts. Damon wanted to gain experience. He cleared it with Herrmann and Severide agreed to make a call for him. Severide wasn’t the only one interviewed. Boden also spoke with Kidd. Kidd said that she got her team back together. Carver came back from rehab. He was sober now. He wanted to get back to work. He also wanted to know if there was anything he could do for Chief Pascal. Pascal recently lost his wife only he didn’t want to talk about it.
Pascal told the firehouse that the best thing they could do for him was doing their job right. He didn’t want any more messes. He didn’t want any more losses. When Pascal was asked about that night, he said it all went to hell rather quickly. The firefighters arrived on the scene and they were told by neighbors that the Marshall family lived there. There were two parents. Two kids. The neighbors hadn’t seen them get out of the house and that’s because they were trapped inside. The teenage son opened a window in his bedroom to beg for help.
The boy was on the second story. He didn’t wait for help to arrive. He jumped out of the window and landed onto a car. The jumper clued in the firefighters that the family hadn’t gotten out. The teenager also said his little brother was still inside. His brother was a baby. He was still sleeping in a crib. There was no way a baby was going to get out on his own and so he begged Kidd to find him. Not that Pascal cared about Kidd stopping to listen to a desperate teenager. He reminded her that he gave her orders and that she needed to follow them.
Pascal was yelling at a lot of people that night. There was so much chaos. The neighbors were all outside watching the scene. There was no traffic control and that meant people kept driving over the hoses hooked up to the water supply. Herrmann also couldn’t call for additional water because it was so loud outside that Doherty couldn’t hear him. Severide went into the home with his team. He knew the exact moment everything went sideways. He said it happened when they got on the second floor of the house.
Cruz struggled to breathe. Severide had to pull him out of the building. Cruz’s regulator had frozen over. He asked for a new one and wanted to go back in, but Pascal vetoed it. He told Cruz to get looked at by the EMTS. Severide went back in. He wasn’t alone in doing so. It was Carver that found the baby boy. He handed him over to Kidd. It was Kidd who brought him to the ambulance. The baby was struggling with his breathing. Kidd had promised his older brother to get him and maybe that’s why she didn’t stay with her team.
Severide needed additional help on the second floor. He asked for Damon. Damon received specialized training and so Herrmann okayed it. He let Damon and Clarence go upstairs with Severide. They found the parents. They were rescued. The firefighters were still trying to control the fire when Chief Pacal gave the order to evacuate. The fire was becoming unmanageable. There was an issue with radio interference. He didn’t want anyone to be harmed and so he called for the firefighters to leave the scene.
They thought everyone had gotten out. Herrmann believed everyone had gotten out. He counted six firefighters going upstairs and six of them leave the house. He also thought they could have handled the situation with more time. Only he wasn’t the Chief. He didn’t want to break command. He told everyone to evacuate. They did and then they heard the firefighter’s monitor. The one that goes off when a firefighter was down. They heard that and they realized they had left someone behind. They wouldn’t have left a firefighter behind if they knew someone was trapped inside.
They would have written off one of their own. What they hadnt counted on was that there was a seventh person inside. Carver took a ladder to the second story and he rescued Clarence who had fallen through the floor. Clarence thought it was Damon that got him. Damon never realized that Clarence wasn’t behind him. Herrmann saw six go up and six go down. He thought the house was cleared, but they had left behind Damon. Damon was the firefighter in the hospital fighting for his life. And Severide blamed himself for leaving him.
There was a reason you don’t work with family. It blurs lines. It also might be used against Severide. Some will say he should never have asked for Damon to assist him upstairs. Damon shouldn’t even have been at the same firehouse as him. Boden hired Damon not knowing he was related to Severide. He did on the other hand let Severide work with his wife and so he couldn’t throw stones at Pascal from his glass house. Not that Pascal wasn’t blaming himself. He was in charge of that scene and those firefighters.
Pascal said if someone had to be blamed that it should be. He let Boden know it too. He was willing to get pushed out to protect his firefighters and so Boden’s verdict of the actions taken by everyone was exemplary. He believed no one made a mistake. Pascal did everything Boden would have done himself. It also helped that Damon survived. He had some issues with his lungs. He needed further testing to know if he could one day return to being a firefighter.
And while no one was getting fired from this, Pascal said things to Herrmann that he couldn’t take back.
THE END
