While the fires are eventually put out, as the smoke dissipates bodies are found – the results of elaborate murders committed by the arsonist.

Firefighter Do-jin, nicknamed “Bulldog”, and paramedic Seol get to be the heroes while they pull out and resuscitate people from the various buildings engulfed in flames, while Ho-gae, who goes by the name “Jindo Dog”, is on the trail of the arsonist.

There is something of a battle of egos between Bulldog and Jindo Dog, and they tend to step into each other’s territory.

Bulldog does some good old-fashioned detective work to identify a rare pipe cutter used in one of the incidents, while Jindo Dog tends to muscle his way into the danger zones – sometimes he gets in the way, other times he lends a crucial supporting hand.

Between this pair is paramedic Seol with her calming presence, who spends her time putting them in their place. It’s a role that can come across as old-fashioned.

She has fewer heroic moments than her male co-stars, and even when she saves a man injured in a building collapse, she then needs to be saved in return.

Beyond her limited role in emergencies, Seol largely occupies the role of mother and lover. She occasionally tends to Ho-gae’s wounds and is also now Do-jin’s romantic partner. In a running joke, he keeps trying to pop the question but is always interrupted.

Anyone jumping back into the show generally knows what to expect, but season two wisely ups the ante straight away by introducing its villain and increasing the aura of mystery and danger around him.

Ho-gae goes to prison to meet Ha Young-doo (Choi Won-young), a despicable serial arsonist responsible for 49 blazes and over a dozen deaths, to try to learn more about the person he is after.

During the chilling Hannibal Lecter-esque interview that follows, the heavily scarred Young-doo waxes lyrical about the uncontrollable nature of fire. In his eyes he is not a murderer – he merely unleashed a terrible force that devours of its own accord.

After this season’s first major action set-piece, the team discovers a charred corpse in a car. A grisly autopsy follows, during which we learn that the man was deliberately trapped in the car and alive at the time of the fire.

We also learn that the body belonged to someone known to the team. He was the belligerent man who refused to move his car for emergency vehicles all the way back during the team’s first joint operation in The First Responders’ debut episode last year. This arsonist clearly has it out for our heroes, but why?

Compared to other episodic K-dramas revolving around heroic figures – usually those scrubbing up in the operating theatre – The First Responders is considerably less concerned with depth of character, which puts it in line with classic American procedural series, the kind that are purely interested in week-to-week cases.

The show’s narrow objective makes it a refreshingly clear viewing experience – offering no-fuss action-suspense that you can drop in and out of at any time without worrying about missing major plot points.

We can just sit back and watch Ho-gae, Do-jin and Seol save lives until they can unmask and put a stop to the arsonist.

The First Responders season 2 is streaming on Disney+.