8 Shows Like Fire Country to Watch If You Like Fire Country

Fire Country is the most-watched new broadcast series of the season, catching a spark with traditional TV audiences on CBS and streaming audiences on Paramount+ alike. So it's no surprise that the firefighter drama received a relatively early Season 2 renewal. CBS announced Fire Country's renewal on Jan. 6, ahead of the show's midseason premiere.  

The series — a crowd-pleasing mix of intense action and soapy small-town drama — was co-created by star Max Thieriot, who was inspired by the firefighters he admired while growing up in wildfire-prone Northern California. It tells the story of Bode Donovan (Thieriot), a convict who signs up for Cal Fire's prison release firefighting program in an effort to atone for his past and shorten his sentence. He gets sent to his hometown, where he has no choice but try to fix his relationship with his family, his friends, and himself. 

If you've been enjoying Fire Country and are looking for similar shows to watch between Season 1 episodes, you're in luck, because there's no shortage of firefighter dramas. In fact, all four major broadcast networks currently have a firefighter drama on the air; Fire Country is actually very late to the firefighter party. I'm leaving those shows off the list — if you're reading this, you don't need me to recommend Chicago Fire to you; it's been on for a decade and you already know if you like it or not. Instead I'm focusing on some older or outside-the-box picks that feature firefighters both fictional and real, emotional small-town drama, and/or Fire Country cast members. The actual fire country may be in the rainy season (and what a rainy season it is), but it's fire season on Fire Country. So slide down the pole, grab your helmet, and get to streaming.

Fire Country Watch on Paramount+

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Cal Fire

The real firefighters of Cal Fire get profiled in this intense Discovery documentary series. Camera crews ride along with the firefighters as they battle wildfires in Northern and Southern California during the 2020 fire season, one of the worst on record. Cal Fire is a lot like Fire Country in the respect bordering on reverence it has for the courageous firefighters and their families, letting them tell their own stories and the stories of the people they lost. It also documents their dangerous fire calls like they're scenes from an action movie — or an episode of Fire Country. Interesting fact: Fire Country was originally going to be called Cal Fire, which is a better title than Fire Country, but at some point the title changed, possibly because the real Cal Fire organization is not at all involved in the show and has in fact condemned the show for "misrepresentation" because the trailer showed a fight between inmate fighter Bode and professional firefighter Jake (Jordan Calloway), which wouldn't happen in real life👀. 

Fire Chasers

Another Cal Fire docuseries. This one is less laser-focused on the heroism of the firefighters and takes a more holistic look at the California fire ecosystem, including the role climate change plays in the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires (environmental advocate Leonardo DiCaprio is an executive producer). The real draw for Fire Country fans is the time Fire Chasers spends with actual Cal Fire prison release firefighters. The ethics of the program itself are questionable, but the female convicts the show documents speak compellingly of the program as a way to change their lives for the better. For them, learning new skills while doing socially and environmentally beneficial work is highly preferable to being in prison. In my opinion, Fire Chasers is a much better show than Cal Fire — it's more informative and artfully made — but your preference will depend on what you're looking for. 

Third Watch

There are no current firefighter/first responder procedurals on this list, but I do recommend this one, which you probably either haven't watched or haven't watched in about 20 years, depending on your age. Third Watch ran for six seasons on NBC from 1999 to 2005 and followed the personal and professional lives of a large, diverse cast of New York City cops, firefighters, and paramedics. Created by ER executive producer John Wells, Third Watch took that show's frenetic pace and sense of jargon-heavy workplace authenticity and gave it a big jolt of blue-collar Big Apple attitude, with a great cast that included Bobby Cannavale, Kim Raver, and Michael Beach. 9/11 happened during the show's third season, and the show memorably incorporated it into its storylines almost in real time. Third Watch is tonally and stylistically very different than Fire Country, but if you generally like shows with a mix of intense first-responder action and characters who know what to do in an emergency but can't figure out their own lives, it's definitely worth rediscovering. 

Rescue Me

No list of firefighter shows would be complete without Rescue Me, Denis Leary's soapy post-9/11 FX dramedy about New York's Bravest (and most messed-up). Leary stars as Tommy Gavin, an Irish American firefighter whose cousin and best friend, fellow firefighter Jimmy Keefe (James McCaffery), died in the towers and is now appearing to Tommy in visions. The show mixed raw and unflinching looks at grief, survivor's guilt, and alcoholism with button-pushing dark comedy and some of the most over-the-top plot twists ever seen in primetime. Rescue Me is much funnier, much crazier, and much more New York than Fire Country, but if you want to watch a show about how the same traits that make someone a great firefighter can make them very difficult to live with as a spouse or parent, it's the one. Diane Farr, who plays Bode's mother and Cal Fire Division Chief Sharon Leone on Fire Country, also plays a firefighter here. 

Tacoma FD

Once you've had your fill of firefighter dramas, why don't you check out a firefighter comedy? Tacoma FD is a goofy workplace sitcom set in a firehouse in the wettest city in America. They don't have much work to do, so the firefighters mostly spend their time doing pranks and getting into trouble. It was created by and stars Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme, two of the members of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe that gave the world comedy cult classics Super Troopers and Beerfest. If you like watching the camaraderie among the firefighters on Fire Country, you might get a kick out of this.

SEAL Team

Max Thieriot first came to prominence on the cult hit horror drama Bates Motel, but it was SEAL Team that set him up for Fire Country. Thieriot played Navy SEAL Clay Spenser for six seasons on the CBS/Paramount+ military drama, though he recently left in order to devote all his time to Fire Country. Clay Spenser and Bode Donovan are similar types of guys. They're both smart and brave but prone to hardheadedness, and they've both been humbled by life into becoming more thoughtful. On a show level, SEAL Team and Fire Country are both action-packed, character-driven dramas about people doing dangerous jobs. 

Virgin River

Virgin River is a soapy, easily accessible drama set in a small town in rural Northern California; in a way, it's the show most like Fire Country on this list. Alexandra Breckenridge stars as Mel Monroe, a nurse practitioner who moves from Los Angeles to the remote town of the title in search of a fresh start. She meets Jack Sheridan (Martin Henderson), a handsome bar owner and former Marine suffering from PTSD, as well as a whole cast of other interesting characters in the tight-knit town. Fire Country and Virgin River both use British Columbia to stand in for Northern California, so they look very similar. 

Black Bird

Fire Country and Black Bird are the only two shows in the micro-genre where a swole felon takes on an unusual assignment in order to shorten his sentence and seek redemption. This based-on-a-true-story Apple TV+ limited series stars Taron Egerton as Jimmy Keene, a charismatic convict who's serving a 10-year federal sentence for drug and gun trafficking. He gets recruited by the FBI to befriend Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser), a fellow prisoner who's a suspected serial killer, and get him to say something incriminating. The show is much darker than Fire Country, but it has some some similar themes, and the performances are exceptional. And Egerton is somehow even more muscular than Max Thieriot, if you can believe that. If you like shows about guys whose t-shirts are no match for their enormous biceps, Black Bird will be your favorite show.