'Chicago Fire' Stars Jesse Spencer and Taylor Kinney Will Officially Return for Season 8 and More

Chicago Fire stars Taylor Kinney and Jesse Spencer will definitely be back for Season 8. The show's major stars signed new contracts to continue leading the NBC firefighter drama.

NBC renewed the show back in February, but according to Deadline, Kinney and Spencer were both not signed for an eighth season. That changed on Thursday when Spencer and Kinney signed two-year deals to continue playing Matthew Casey and Kelly Severide, respectively.

When the actors were originally cast on the show, they both signed six year contracts, just as Eamonn Walker, David Eigenberg and Monica Raymund did. While Walker and Eigenberg signed two-year deals after Season 6, Raymund chose not to sign a new deal and her character was written out of the show. She has since joined Starz's Hightown.

Deadline reports that Christian Stolte, Joe Minoso and Yuri Sararov all signed new deals for Season 8. All three were considered recurring stars for the first season and were promoted to regulars in Season 2. Miranda Rae Mayo, Annie Ilonzeh and Kara Killmer, who joined the show in later seasons, are all signed as well.

Spencer previously starred in House for eight seasons, and joined Chicago Fire right after the Fox medical drama ended. Kinney previously appeared on The Vampire Diaries and starred in the movie Zero Dark Thirty.

Chicago Fire is the first of Dick Wolf's three Chicago shows now on air. Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med were also picked up for seventh and fifth seasons, respectively, in February.

"We remain in awe of the job Dick Wolf, our producers, casts and crews do in creating some of the most compelling television today," Lisa Katz and Tracey Pakosta, NBC Entertainment co-presidents of Scripted Programming, said in a statement at the time. "The Chicago franchise is a linchpin of our schedule and we're thrilled that audiences have embraced our Wednesdays with such incredible passion for these shows and characters."

This season, all three shows air back-to-back-to-back on Wednesdays, beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

The next new episode of Chicago Fire is titled "Until the Weather Breaks," which airs on April 24. In the episode, a terrible storm hits Chicago, leaving Firehouse 51 without power. Amid the chaos, a little boy shows up at the firehouse and the team tries to help him.

NBC also renewed Wolf's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for a record-breaking 21st season in March. The prolific producer is also behind CBS' FBI, which is getting its own spin-off, FBI: Most Wanted, next season. He is developing a follow-up to New York Undercover for ABC. A Law & Order spin-off called Law & Order: Hate Crimes was in development, but production was halted in early March.

Photo credit: NBC