7 Months in the Life of a ‘Firehouse’

If your gut response to the idea of another tribute to firefighters is a slightly guilty “Enough already,” you can relax. The five-part series “Firehouse” (starting tonight at 9 on NBC) treats its subjects not as simple star-spangled heroes but as something more compelling: dedicated men and women doing a dangerous job.

The “Dateline” production profiles a different fire company each week, beginning with Rescue 4 in Queens, N.Y. It was shot over seven months last year using hand-held cameras to catch the action up close, and narrated through interviews with the firefighters.

On Father’s Day 2001, Rescue 4 sped to a hardware store blaze, where a fireball fueled by chemicals ended up killing three squad members.

“How much worse could it get?” one of the firefighters asked rhetorically, and then came Sept. 11. Rescue 4 lost several of its own in the attacks, and for months the company searched for remains amid burning metal and concrete dust at “The Pile,” or ground zero.

The show also captures the cooped-up camaraderie of the workaday life in a firehouse. Said one macho firefighter: “Sometimes I feel like I’m married to some of these guys, and that’s not a pretty thought either.” The gang got a grudging laugh out of the thrifty captain, a hoarder of cleaning supplies, by secretly strewing his scouring pads about the station.

Though their celebrity status has been elevated post-9/11, these firefighters seem as unassuming as they are proud of their work. After the squad overcame a language barrier to find and save a man trapped at an illegal construction site one afternoon, a firefighter said simply: “It was a win.”

As another remarked without a trace of false modesty, taking the firefighter’s oath is the only act of bravery, adding, “After that, we’re just doing our job.”