"What all my buddies were experiencing": When Fire Country star Max Theriot revealed what inspired him to "tell the story" in the CBS procedural

Fire Country on CBS has definitively ushered in the era when the audience's admiration for firefighting shows has certainly toppled the previous obsession with police procedurals. Fire Country initially debuted back in 2022 and has since then premiered three seasons that centre around the character of Bode Donovan, played by actor Max Thieriot, a convicted felon serving a five-year sentence.

Bode seizes a rare opportunity to redeem himself and reduce his sentence in Fire Country after he is offered a position as a prison inmate firefighter in Northern California. By throwing himself into the face of dangerous fire situations, Bode will be able to have the rest of his sentence commuted. The show holds special significance for Thieriot, who dons multiple hats, viz. the co-creator, executive producer, and occasional director of episodes.

Here's everything that you need to know.

Fire Country is close to Max Thieriot's personal experiences

Max Thieriot grew up in Northern California and had several friends working in the firefighting department in the area. He had a first-hand exposure to the perils of such a hazardous job as firefighting back when his friends were involved in quelling the 2017 California fires. As a testament to this personal experience, Thieriot believed that the story of Fire Country needed to be told. Speaking with CBS Mornings last year, Thieriot reiterated the source of his inspiration behind co-creating and starring on the show:

"I think watching what everybody went through...what all my buddies were experiencing as firefighters was certainly what made me wanna tell the story. You know, it was rough. A lot of friends have done this for a long time and the things that you have to see and go through, the people that you have to console in those situations...its not an easy job."

The narrative of Fire Country follows Bode being transferred to a prison inmate camp in Edgewater, California. The debut season of Fire Country revealed that the entirety of Bode's family lived in the vicinity of Edgewater and that all of them are firefighters. Bode soon becomes an active part of Three Rock and valiantly fights against raging fires across the individual episodes of the show. Speaking to Variety in October 2022, Max Thieriot had opened up about the inspiration behind the show's genesis:

"It certainly started from a purely firefighting CalFire standpoint and what that would look like, but the inmate firefighter program was always going to be something that would be involved in the show. Because of growing up in Northern California, it was normal, everyday life for me, seeing conservation camp crews work alongside the highway and on the fire lines driving around. Then I realized folks that aren’t from up there, specifically, didn’t really know this was a thing a few years ago."

The very core of firefighting has mostly been a relatable area for Thieriot himself, as he also recalled that when a fire started near his Occidental home in Sonoma County in the near past, he couldn't help but hop into his truck and visit the scene himself so that he could do his bit to help:

"My mom and my sister and my brother live in Occidental, and my mom was calling me in the middle of the night to hop on a truck and come up from LA and help load up horse trailers and move animals and livestock and go around the county and pick up animals."

Thieriot also touched upon the universality of the firefighting profession, stating that firefighters are revered for being heroes, and this is one such profession that is yet free of political infiltration, as compared to the police:

"Universally, people revere firefighters as heroes, no matter what. For me, it’s an anti-political thing too. There’s not a lot of folks who can take a stance against firefighters,” he says. “The drama is different. I think a lot of times in entertainment, people want to feel good at the end of something. I’m not saying all the time: You want to be shocked, you want a hook, you want all those things. But I think having that positive sort of message all the time is a nice, uplifting feeling."

It is also interesting to note that the basis of CalFire and Three Rock on Fire Country is rooted in reality. Following the workforce crisis during the Second World War, a total of forty-one "interim camps" were established all across the country that primarily consisted of prison inmates being enlisted to work as firefighters. This came under the purview of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the Conservation (Fire) Camp Program.

Showrunners open up about Fire Country season 3 finale and more

The third season of Fire Country recently concluded with a riveting two-part finale that ended with a dramatic cliffhanger. In a recent interview with Deadline, showrunner Tia Napolitano and executive producer duo Tony Phelan and Joan Rater shared their insights from the third season's finale. When asked about the decision to keep the finale open-ended, Napolitano answered:

"I wanted this ferocity of Bode, just like a lion, primal, knowing three members of his family are inside that fire, knowing that he’s been resisting going in, and Jake, his captain, has been holding him back. It wasn’t quite blocked that way, but emotionally Jake, the ferocity of him protecting his friend. They were best friends. They’ve gone through some stuff. They’re brothers, and these two young men rising in the ranks in the fire department in the season of legacy with those three lions inside just felt like, gosh."

Phelan then added:

"There are different ways you can do it. You can have that kind of resolution, like they had on 9-1-1, or you can go off on the question and have the audience holding onto the question throughout the hiatus. And I think, depending on how you’ve chosen to wrap things up, both are really valid choices. As Tia said, the theme of last season was legacy, and so this felt like the best way to have the audience really grappling with what that means for all the characters on the show."

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Fire Country is exclusively available on CBS.

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