Many reviewers around here are unnecessarily harsh and critical for "Onder Vuur", and I wonder why. Where's your sense of patriotism, people? For a Flemish made action/thriller series about firefighters - and thus requiring a lot of special effects and stunt work - this really isn't bad at all. Quite the contrary, I daresay it's one of the better Flemish series of the past 20-30 years, and it also gets increasingly better with every episode and every season. Admittedly the first few episodes were quite hectic and unengaging, but "Onder Vuur" rapidly became a professional and addictive series. The second half of season one was already solid, but season two was better than season one, and season three is the best of everything.
An often-read complaint is that "Onder Vuur" is a too obliviously attempting to imitate the successful American fire brigade series. Well, duh... unless it's about struggling farmer families in the early 1900s, EVERY Flemish movie or TV-series is a knockoff of an American success formula! There's nothing wrong with that. Sure, it feels like a localized version of "Chicago Fire" or "Rescue Me". Personally, I'd say "Rescue Me" because the private issues of the firemen and firewomen are quite bonkers and far-fetched sometimes.
"Onder Vuur" takes place at the Flemish coast, in the city of Ostend, and centers on the fire-fighting squad East Bank. Straight from the first season, there's speculation of a merging with the city's other and much larger squad, because of understaffing and a operating zone that is too small. The team fanatically resists against a merging, but it eventually happens in season 3. The series features a good mix between intrigues and personal conflicts between the fire-fighters mutually, and spectacular emergency situations/heroic interventions. The latter category is often exceptionally well-handled and includes - among many other situations - a fire inside a green-energy windmill 200m above the ground, a bloody accident with a dune buggy, a fallen construction crane, an engine fire on board of a fisherman ship, and the evacuation of a collapsed factory where an illegal rave took place.
There's solid acting from many of (West) Flanders' finest actors and actresses. Pivotal character is Orlando Foncke, played by Louis Talpe. You can compare his character with Denis Leary in "Rescue Me". He's brave, devoted, and multi-skilled, but also too impulsive and struggling with quite a lot of personal issues. The list of supportive players is impressive - if you live in Flanders, at least - with names like Sam Louwyck, Dirk van Dijck, Joke Devynck, Wim Willaert, Aimé Claeys, etc. Judging by the final episode of the third season, I'm guessing there won't be a fourth season. That actually makes "Onder Vuur" unique from a different angle... It's a series that knows when to quit when ahead.
