‘Fire Country’ Season 5 Is Confirmed, But CBS Just Cut Nearly Half Its Episodes
‘Fire Country’ has been officially renewed for a fifth season, but fans hoping for a full run will want to temper their expectations. According to Deadline, the CBS firefighter drama has received a 13-episode order for Season 5, down from 20 episodes in the current season.
The cuts reflect a network strategy to make room for new scripted shows, despite strong ratings for the affected series. ‘Fire Country’ is far from alone in facing the trim. ‘NCIS: Origins’ Season 3 will run for just 10 episodes after Season 2 had 18, as will ‘NCIS: Sydney’ Season 4, while ‘Matlock’ Season 3 has also been handed a 13-episode order, continuing a downward trend for the Kathy Bates legal drama.
CBS is having its biggest scripted expansion in years, adding three new drama series to the fall schedule in ‘Cupertino’, ‘Einstein’, and ‘NCIS: New York’. To accommodate this growth, the network reduced full-season orders for returning series rather than canceling them outright, allowing CBS to maintain a wider variety across its lineup without overwhelming production resources. New arrivals ‘Cupertino’ and ‘NCIS: New York’ will each receive full 20-episode orders, while ‘Einstein’, which will debut in midseason, has a 13-episode order.
CBS has confirmed that the Friday night lineup will remain intact, with ‘Sheriff Country’ at 8 p.m., ‘Fire Country’ at 9 p.m., and ‘Boston Blue’ at 10 p.m. CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach confirmed the arrangement is staying put. Still, with only 13 episodes to its name, ‘Fire Country’ will depart that lineup earlier than its Friday companions, leaving a gap the network will fill with another series later in the season.
The shorter episode count is just one of several significant changes heading into Season 5. Tia Napolitano stepped down as showrunner after four seasons, with Eric Guggenheim taking over after previously serving as showrunner of ‘Magnum P.I.’ and co-showrunner of ‘Hawaii Five-0’. In her farewell, Napolitano told Deadline, “I am beyond proud of the past four seasons of Fire Country. All of my gratitude to our cast, crew, writers, producers, fans, and of course CBS and CBS Studios. It’s been a beautiful ride.”
‘Fire Country’ debuted in 2022 as the number one new series across broadcast networks, following Max Thieriot’s Bode Donovan, a convict who volunteers for the California Conservation Camp Program to reduce his prison sentence. The series has since expanded into a growing franchise, with spinoffs ‘Sheriff Country’ and the newly confirmed ‘Med Country’ broadening the universe that Thieriot co-created alongside writers Tony Phelan and Joan Rater.
As of now, there is no confirmed premiere date for Season 5, but with the show remaining part of CBS’s fall 2026 schedule, a September or October 2026 launch is expected. For a show that built its reputation on full-season storytelling, 13 tightly paced episodes could actually work in its favor, giving the incoming showrunner a focused canvas to reset the drama after several turbulent years behind the scenes.
