The docuseries depicts the day-to-day lives of firefighters and first responders across Los Angeles.
The real-life firefighters are getting the spotlight in LA Fire and Rescue, NBC's docuseries from Dick Wolf that peels back the curtain on the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Premiering Wednesday, the docuseries -- which features eight firehouses across LA County, air operations and the lifeguard division -- documents actual calls and drama while giving a face to the firefighters who risk their lives in the name of service.
ET's Matt Cohen visited one of the featured firehouses, Station 8 in West Hollywood, and spoke with Captains Mike Carolan and Jason Cardenas about depicting the daily lives of first responders on LA Fire and Rescue.
"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."
And no call is too big or small for Station 8, they say. "We're very good at what we do," Cardenas said. "We can get cats out of the trees, believe it or not. We get a lot of people, old people who fall down and we help them up. But we have to prepare for every call to be that big fire so we're ready to go."
Located off the Sunset Strip, Carolan and Cardenas' fire station "regularly deals with the intricacies of putting out fires in large apartment complexes and high-rise buildings," according to NBC's description, and the captains of the firehouse "lead with the guiding principles of service and brotherhood at the forefront. Personal and professional lives blend in their firehouse as the squad rallies together to support fellow firefighter and cancer survivor, Dave Castellanos."
"It's definitely not normal for us," Carolan said of having cameras filming their every move. "We definitely changed. It's kind of the dynamics of things. So when you do get a call that's part of being good at your job is to be able to shut out the noise and focus on what your job at hand is. We noticed them in the station on the calls. You're focused on what you're doing, so I think it was pretty easy to drown out that [the cameras] were there. But it was it was good experience."
Cardenas spoke about chronicling Castellanos' cancer battle, which is part of the firehouse's story, and acknowledged it's easy to get "emotional" when looking back on their colleague's journey. "It takes us back to reliving his story. What a great story," he said. "We went through right in the beginning where he pulled me in the office and told me what was going on to all the way to the end where we're celebrating him in an office probation year having his family here and his defeat against cancer. So it was very emotional, very emotional going through it with David and the uncertainty of the future. Talking to him every day, whether it was on the phone or going through step by step with David and in rallying around him. And again for me, It was great seeing his family here and him with a big smile on his face, coming back to work after defeating cancer and celebrating it."
The close vicinity to Hollywood means sometimes the firefighters in Station 8 encounter celebrities as part of their day-to-day job, but Carolan and Cardenas noted they don't report to as many calls from famous people as one would think.
"A unique story I have when I was here, we're on our way to a drill above Sunset. We're stopped at a red light and a car pulls up next to us and I glance over and looking every bit like you want him to look -- a cigar, sunglasses, top down, Arnold Schwarzenegger. So he gave me a fist bump," Carolan recalled.
"About 20 years ago, I was a firefighter paramedic here and I was on the truck that day and we had a fire alarm down the street on Santa Monica Boulevard. We pull up, there's nothing showing. We go in there with our equipment and we see a little light haze from the ceiling on down. It smells kind of familiar, almost like cigars," Cardenas shared. "So we go in the back and it was cigars. It was Adam Sandler and his boys back there lighting up stogies. Nothing on fire, but they were just having a good time."
They also recalled a time when Odell Beckham Jr. came by one day and threw around a football with the folks at the fire station. "A lot of celebrities, every once in a while, come by the station and thank us, especially when there's big incidents, there's big wildland fires [and] will drop stuff off to us -- water, food, socks, things like that we can use out in the fire. Sometimes they just come in to say hello."
There's no shortage of firefighter dramas on television, such as Chicago Fire and Station 19. Both Carolan and Cardenas acknowledged that while most scripted firefighter dramas take a leap of faith when it comes to depicting the ins and outs of a fire emergency, they're still grateful for the shows shining a light on first responders.
"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.
"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."
LA Fire and Rescue premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
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