In the earlier month of October 2017, wildfires had gotten much worse, and are still affecting California and the people living in California. The wildfires are spreading faster than firefighters can handle. Although the firefighters in California are working extra hard to stop the wildfires, they can’t always put them out; but they can try and stop the spreading of the fires. The show Fire Chasers shows the real life problems of California and the wildfires that are causing thousands to lose their homes and their lives.

The four hour documentary series Fire Chasers shows how damaging wildfires in California can be over the course of 197 days. The documentary takes viewers through an eventful adventure through the eyes of the filmmakers and firefighters. The program shows how much damage wildfires have caused over the years, especially in 2016 when more than 2,000 to 3,000 homes a night were being destroyed by wildfires. The documentary draws most of its power from the people in the shows, such as the firefighters, the volunteers, and the rookies.

Volunteers in the documentary are an important part of helping during the wildfires season. The volunteers risk their lives by helping the firefighters do things that they are not focused on. For example, while the firefighters are putting out the fires, volunteers are there helping keep the firefighters safe and bringing them supplies.

The rookies are another important aspect to the firefighting business. They are the future to becoming firefighters and saving families and their homes. The rookies are the men and women that just started their career. These rookies are in training with some other men and women who have gone through their trainings and are able to help train the rookies into becoming better firefighters for the future.

In the documentary there is lots of cussing and language not approved for younger viewers, yet the documentary shows the true experiences of professional firefighters and the difficulties of handling the dangerous fires. The whole point of the show is to help inform viewers about how hard firefighters work.

Fire Chasers features many interviews with the firefighters themselves, many different people from prisons, volunteers, and other people who are part of the fire division. During the documentary, mother nature challenges fire departments all over California and helps show the viewers the real work firefighters do.

To help introduce firefighting and to recieve more firefighters who can help in major fire situations they retrieved inmates from a woman’s prison to learn how to become a firefighter. These women do the same training as men training to become firefighters. Women inmates take tests and different training tests, if passed the women earn their firefighting certificates which allow them to become firefighters after prison.

Two women involved in the program, Michelle Hedden and Bri Cody, had a highly effective time during the program and this allowed them to turn their lives around to become better people. Some inmates interviewed were emotional because of the opportunity they were given to prove how they wanted to change, get back to their families, and have a healthy, normal life again.

Many of the firefighters during their interviews agreed that they are family and they will always protect each other.

Chris Sparks, one of the firefighters states, “The ability to go fly in a helicopter and fight a fire in the middle of nowhere with your brothers, with some garden tools, and at the end of the day, come home, and you joke around and wash the soot off, and you guys are just back at it again, it’s…I cant imagine my life any other way, to be honest.”

In any scenario during a fire and off the job, the firefighters are together having fun and making sure everyone stays safe and alert to protect. Following the rookies and the chief firefighters through the fire season, we learn many interesting facts and different techniques used to put out fires. During the season we see firefighters put themselves in different dangerous situations such as putting out huge fires – that are almost impossible to put out – yet they don’t stop till the fires are out and everyone is safe.