‘Fire Country’ Star Max Thieriot Talks Franchise Expansion Amid Jared Padalecki Spinoff Rumors

As Fire Country heads into its third season, creator and star Max Thieriot is looking towards the show’s future as a franchise. After only the first season, it was reported that CBS was looking to develop a couple of spinoffs of the firefighter series, with a backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff starring Morena Baccarin airing during Season 2. Not long after the episode aired, CBS confirmed that Sheriff Country had been given a straight-to-series order for the 2025-26 season.

Now, it’s been reported that Jared Padalecki could also be eying a spinoff of his own after appearing in a small arc in the upcoming season. For Thieriot, he actually always pictured Fire Country as a franchise, admitting to Deadline that the show “was a big turning point for me as far as producing and writing. I feel like I’m one of those people that was always putting the cart before the horse a little bit. I think before it’d even aired, I was trying to pitch four spinoff ideas.”

While Sheriff Country won’t be premiering for at least another year, the ball has already started rolling on it. “Sheriff Country we’re very excited about, Morena is incredible,” Thieriot said. “We’ve been assembling a really incredible [writers] room, I spoke with Joan and Tony the other day, and they’ve been over there working with [showrunner] Matt Lopez. I couldn’t be more excited for that show to be coming out.”

As for Padalecki’s potential spinoff, “we’ll see where all that stuff goes, I think it’s early to have any real update on that front,” Thieriot shared. It’s still unknown when Padalecki’s episodes will be premiering, but it is early on in the season since he’s already been filming. Whether or not a spinoff will happen remains to be seen, but whatever happens, Thieriot is just happy with the way Fire Country has turned out in a short time with its expansion.

“But I think we all felt like Fire Country was something that could become a franchise,” the SEAL Team alum said. “And the most important people who believe in that are George [Cheeks] and Amy [Reisenbach] and David [Stapf] and everybody over there.” It’s clear that Fire Country will become CBS’ next successful franchise, following in the footsteps of NCIS, CSI, and FBI, and it’s exciting to predict just how far it will go. In the meantime, fans can look forward to Fire Country Season 3 premiering on Friday, Oct. 18 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.