'Fire Country' Jordan Calloway Once Evacuated During Wildfire: Hits 'Near Home'

In our "POPSUGAR Crush" Q&A series, we get to know some of the most intimate details of our favorite celebrities: from their first celebrity crush to the best love advice they've ever had never received. This month, we have a crush on "Fire Country" star Jordan Calloway.

On the surface, CBS' new first-responder procedural drama "Fire Country" may seem like just a bunch of really good-looking people fighting fires. But the series is much more than that - especially for star Jordan Calloway. Although the cast is not made up of real smoke jumpers and the drama is fictional, the problem of wildfires in Northern California, where the show is set, is very real. In fact, Calloway, a native of Aberdeen, Calif., was directly affected by it.

“I remember the 1996 [wildfires in Southern California]. That was one of the ones we evacuated in,” Calloway told POPSUGAR. "I just remember all the hills were on fire and burning. Or recently when the redwoods were burning, I remember going on road trips with my family up there and seeing the redwoods."< /p>

The fact that the show's subject matter hit "very close to home" for Calloway was one of the factors that convinced him to sign on. "I feel a huge responsibility...[and it's] a privilege to be part of this project...to have grown up with it," he says.

“Fire Country” also shines a light on the residents of the fictional small town of Edgewater, California, and how their lives are affected when a convict and former resident named Bode unexpectedly returns, joining a release program anticipated helping firefighters reduce his prison sentence. "Because this is his hometown, as he begins to work through some of his sentence...it's also going to be revealed that there are skeletons in the closet for him, for his friends and loved ones home as they all begin to answer the question of where Bode has been for the past two years," Calloway says.

Calloway's character, Jake, is a promising and respected firefighter with the Cal Fire Department and one of many Edgewater residents with an inexplicable connection to Bode. "I love Jake's dichotomy," Calloway says of his character. "Here you have an individual who has a heart of gold who wants to help people... He loves the people who brought him into this line of business, who have been parents, father figures and mothers carriers for him. But at the same time, he has trouble communicating... He doesn't know how to ask for help. He goes on to add, "He's so worried about trying to do things right or trying to make sure everyone loves him...that he sometimes ends up hurting himself."