Fire Chief (1940)

Fire Chief Review

Fire Chief is a 1940 animated short film from the Donald Duck series. It is a very solid, though not great short.

Donald and his nephews are the staff at a fire station. They have to save their station when it gets engulfed in flames. Eventually, it all burns to the ground, including even Donald’s vehicle and his hat. I did not quite love this movie. It was awkwardly paced and not particularly funny, though some of its action set pieces are undeniably well executed.

The highlight here is obviously Donald himself. He is very amusing as this bumbling firefighter. The nephews are in this movie actually not as terrible to their uncle as they mostly were in previous shorts, but they still accidentally make him suffer. I prefer this type of relationship between them and I hope it returns. The animation is just gorgeous with the flames being particularly well realized.

Fire Chief isn’t as funny as it should have been, but it’s so well animated and featuring a very amusing Donald in the firefighter role.

My Rating – 3.9