Dick Wolf, creator of the wildly successful Law & Order and One Chicago franchises, is putting real first responders front and center in his new NBC docuseries LA Fire and Rescue. The new show provides a closer look at the ins and outs of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, following eight different firehouses in LA County as well as air operations and the lifeguard division. You get to see all the action following real calls and how these men and women really do risk their lives daily.
Captains Mike Carolan and Jason Cardenas of Station 8 in West Hollywood spoke with ET about how it felt having the cameras highlight their daily operations.
"We're very fortunate that NBC and the show, LA Fire and Rescue, has chosen this station. We like to think that the public has been invited to our station, our family, our house. We're here 24 hours and so they could see what happens when the bell goes off and what we're doing when the bell is not going off. There's a lot that takes place here," Cardenas told ET.
"Mike and I would train our crews daily and be prepared and limit that stress and help limit the danger. Some of the types of calls we go on are high-speed accidents. We go on high-rise fires. Sometimes we go on apartment, house fires. We go on a lot of medicals, a lot of drug overdoses — things that are raw, things that are uncertain and we have to be careful going in and work as a team to help the public out."
There's no shortage of firefighter dramas on TV these days, with Chicago Fire being one of the most beloved and the series that kicked off Wolf's One Chicago universe, also comprised of Chicago PD and Chicago Med. Carolan and Cardenas admitted that scripted TV gets a bit generous with the drama they dish out. But they still appreciate what they do to highlight what it means and entails to be a firefighter.
"For us to do the job day to day, that's not how it goes. But it represents us well. It represents fire service. People enjoy the show," Carolan said. "So it brings fans in when you drive down the street and people are waving. We have a great relationship with the public. And that goes all the way throughout the nation, so those shows — as far as like the day to day how they [do] their operations, it's not real life but it's Hollywood."
"And when you have a building fire and you can still see the actor in the building and he's talking and the camera, you [still] see him. That's a no-go. I couldn't see Mike right now this close. That's blinding smoke," Cardenas said.
Regardless of how accurate the shows are, they are grateful for representing their profession and shining a light on the dangers real firefighters face.
"But we appreciate them doing more and more shows like that," he continued. "They're trying to get it right. It puts a light on what we do as professionals, so we welcome that."
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