Brandon Smith shares his thoughts on CBS’s hit drama Fire Country

CBS’s hit drama series Fire Country returns to the air tonight with season two, episode five, after a brief hiatus during the month of March, due to March Madness college basketball.

The series — which made its premiere as the number one new series in Fall 2022 — follows the life of Bode Donovan (played by Max Thieriot) who, midway through a five-year prison sentence joins the unconventional Conservation Camp prison-release program where “in exchange for reduced sentences, convicts are paired with firefighters battling Northern California wildfires.”

California still utilizes over 3,000 incarcerated people a year to combat its growing emergency/disaster problems while not creating concrete pathways for them to utilize those skills once home.

While the show is fictional, it is based on the real-life California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (a.k.a., Cal Fire). When the show came out, Cal Fire’s director, Joe Tyler, told the Los Angeles Times, “This television series is a misrepresentation of the professional all-hazards fire department and resource protection agency that Cal Fire is.”

Tim Edwards, president of Cal Fire’s union, Local 2881, added: “I want to emphasize that we were not involved in the creation or production of the show, and we do not endorse the series. We have spoken with our legal team, and we cannot prevent the series from airing or using the Cal Fire name.”

Series star and co-creator Thieriot responded at the time to the criticism, saying, “I think I was more surprised by how quickly they [weighed in] without having seen anything, and how the opinion came very fast off of a trailer that’s cut together to bring in an audience.” He also defended the Conservation Camp Program itself, which was also coming under fire (so to speak), saying, “Any time that we can try to rehabilitate people, and give them a real opportunity and second chance, then that’s a good thing.”

JustLeadershipUSA leader Brandon Smith (Leading with Conviction™ 2020) is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP), a nonprofit organization helping those in California’s fire camps obtain gainful employment once released. Brandon worked six years (both in and out of fire camp) as a wildland firefighter and forestry technician. He attended the University of California- Berkeley and the Victor Valley Colleges Wildland Academy. He has been advocating for and supporting the fire camp population since 2014.

We reached out to Brandon to get his take on Fire Country, and this is what he shared: “I have not watched the show. I tried the first episode and just find it hard to watch a dramatized version of a reality I lived. While I do appreciate them willing to tell a story that includes those impacted by the use of incarcerated people working as firefighters — I cannot in good faith do so while the owners of those stories still struggle to thrive today. California still utilizes over 3,000 incarcerated people a year to combat its growing emergency/disaster problems while not creating concrete pathways for them to utilize those skills once home. That’s the reality of Fire Country.”

Meanwhile, the blazing popularity of Fire Country shows no signs of going out. Last month the series was renewed for a third season, and a spin-off series, which centers the storyline of a deputy sheriff character named Mickey Fox (played by Morena Baccarin), is also in the works. That character will make their debut on Fire Country on April 12.