Dick Wolf is no stranger to showcasing heroics on the small screen. The prolific producer has an entire weeknight dedicated to his first-responder shows: “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD” and “Chicago Med.” Now with the new docuseries “LA Fire & Rescue,” premiering Wednesday, the super producer is helping showcase the real-life heroics of members of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Wolf serves as an executive producer on the unscripted project, joining forces with Tom Thayer (Wolf Entertainment), Rasha Drachkovitch (44 Blue) and Robyn Younie, who serves as showrunner.
It took two years for the production to get access to the LAFD, and another year to shoot and edit the episodes. In total, production went out on 1,000 emergency calls to capture footage. In addition to the calls, the show profiles the responders who handle them. Viewers get insights into the mental and physical training that goes into being a first responder, how they handle unpredictable and often dangerous situations, and what happens after they handles the calls.
TheWrap spoke with Drachkovitz ahead of the “LA Fire and Rescue” series premiere to learn how the show all came together.
How did you pick the departments that you partnered with, for example, Station 16 (Watts) and Station 8 (West Hollywood)?
The casting process was really interesting. We sent out an invitation to over 3,000 firefighters and we had an overwhelming response. Some of them were skeptical and most of them are curious. What we were looking for was a representation of “Dick Wolf characters”: the grizzly fire chief, the nervous rookie, the funny happenings that happened in the station, as well as the calls and so on. We were so excited to have so many interesting people to choose from, and they became basically the 16 members of the cast. And, it’s not just a fire station, we’re going to be at the beach with the lifeguards, we’re going to be in the air with air drops if your car, God forbid, goes over Mulholland.
The brush fires are a totally different landscape and environment. As you know, every fire season we hear about the huge fires that engulf the hills of the Southland. Then the urban firefighting, structure fires, high-rise fires — each one of those require different types of filming and different specialty gear. How do you go into water? How do you go shoot from the air? So we were really fortunate to hire some great specialist camera crews with their unique abilities to capture the action.
Tell us about how you covered the calls with your specialists and crews.
We went out on over 1,000 calls, which is really a huge volume. We were on the equivalent of on-call, because calls could come in 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. So the crews really were set for 24/7 shifts, and we had to have a lot of things pre-set, in a sense, to never get in the way of a call. Obviously, we’re there to observe, not to become the story.
So we had to take a lot of specialty cameras: mounts, lipstick cams — they’re called Black Magic — cameras that are really fantastic. They’re great in low light that can be turned on remotely. So when the call comes in, and there’s a life to save, we just want to be right there.
I have to say that adrenaline of a call coming in and assessing it — you’re basically on call with the fire fighters themselves. It’s an adrenaline rush. But what’s really amazing is when you see what happens at the scene of an emergency, when someone’s worst day is met by a firefighter’s best day saving lives. It’s inspiring and uplifting, because the negative stories usually get the headlines. But here, you get a chance to see really heroic acts on a daily, nightly basis.
Often the responders find themselves in dangerous or even life-threatening situations. Was there any special training your field crews had to go through?
Yes, L.A. County insisted on that, and we did as well. We had to take quite a few classes on how to wear specialty gear, especially for the brush fires. We had to take classes on where we can stage and where it was appropriate for us to be. With brush fires, the winds of Santa Ana can come in. It could seem contained and suddenly engulf a huge area. So we wanted to make sure that the commanders in the field were instructing us exactly where to go and how to go. It’s important to get the story, but it’s just TV; this is life and death stuff.
We had also the aerial cress. If you’re flying around Southern California, especially over treacherous mountains, you have to know how to harness and be prepared in case of an evac. For lifeguards, it’s funny because we got a lot of comments like, “Oh, you film Baywatch.” Yes, they’re the L.A. County lifeguards, but it’s not all Pamela Anderson out there. It can be very, very dangerous, especially when the surf’s pretty rough, and what the lifeguards have to do to be able to swim out and pull someone in from from drowning. We had the same concern with our crews. You can’t go in with these heavy packs and try to follow them out. So we designed underwater housings for our cameras to be able to go out as far as we could to get the action without becoming a casualty.
You mentioned you filmed over 1,000 calls. How did you distill those down to the ones that you use for the show? And do you have a favorite among the calls that you feature on the show?
When you film over 1,000 calls, obviously, volume and filtering becomes a big challenge. So we had a big storyboard wall with 3×5″ cards. They were all color-coded. We wanted to balance each show, introduce a new character and every episode and show a new fire station, not do too much of lands, air or sea. We wanted to get at a macro level, give Los Angeles its scope. And then at a micro level, follow a human story. My favorite is Dan Olivas at Station 16. A veteran of 30+ years and a kind of a father figure. He’s a great guy, just a big bear of a man. And his son just graduated from the academy. You know, he’s in his early 20s, and so the graduation ceremony — I’m a softy for bagpipes and saluting — you can imagine that scene where he sees his son enter into the firefighter community. And then everybody from Station 16 came there for the graduates and they pick up both the father and the son on their shoulders and throw them in the air. I love that tradition.
Dick Wolf is an executive producer on the show. What did he contribute?
He was key in getting access because the name Dick Wolf is obviously synonymous with success and great storytelling and heroes. The other thing was his involvement in identifying the characters. As I said earlier, finding the “Dick Wolf characters” — you know who they are, there’s a real feeling of right and wrong, and you get a sense of who the hero is. Getting his notes, they were always spot-on, whether it was like, “Hey, speed it up here. Slow it down there.” When your partner’s a television legend, what a great feeling that is, because he certainly knows storytelling better than anybody.
It’s great at the end of each episode there’s a QR code to donate to the LAFD.
It’s important to give back and support the fire agencies. So we worked with the foundation who support all things when it comes to L.A. County Fire and established a giving opportunity for viewers if they feel inspired enough. They’re understaffed and overworked and certainly when it comes to helping out with new equipment and state-of-the-art materials, those dollars can go a long way to again, helping the community.
“LA Fire & Rescue” airs Wednesdays on NBC at 8 p.m. ET/PT and Thursdays on Peacock. Watch the preview of Episode 1 below:
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
