The cast also boasts The Closer‘s Billy Burke as Cal Fire chief Vince; Lucifer‘s Kevin Alejandro as Manny, who’s in charge of training the children; Rescue Me‘s Diane Farr as Sharon; Black Lightning‘s Jordan Calloway as Jake; Penny Dreadful: City of Angels‘ Stephanie Arcila as Gabriela; and Guilty Party’s Jules Latimer as Eve.
In the TVLine video Q&A above Thieriot — who co-wrote the story and serves as an executive producer — says that it was about two-and-a-half years ago when he got serious about turning this aspect of his Northern California educations into a TV series. In part because it was so foreign a concept to many!“Once I stared telling a few people about the general concept, I realized how few people knew about the inmate firefighter program,” Thieriot shares. “They were like, ‘What do you mean, there’s prisoners who fight fire?!”
Thieriot goes on to compare and contrast Bode Donovan and Clay Spenser, the SEAL Team operator he has played for six seasons. “Clay is more open and confrontational,” while “Bode is more heady,” the actor suggests. “Bode has gone through a lot of pain in his life.”
At the 1:40 mark, Thieriot touts the assorted character dynamics to watch for in Fire Country, including the one he sorta likens to Sonny/Clay. We then get into how this series is very convincingly pulling off roaring, dynamic forest fires without, you know, razing acres of actual nature.
“It’d be a lot easier probably for us to burn down a forest!” he quips, instead giving proper credit to “our amazing VFX team.”
Then at the 2:40 mark, we turn the talk to SEAL Team, where Clay is now learning to live life as an amputee, after losing his right leg to an RPG attack. Thieriot talks about the highs and lows on tap for Clay as well as Clay and his wife Stella (previously summarized up here).
