A recruit who can produce flames from his feet joins a special fire brigade fighting people transformed by spontaneous combustion and investigating why it happens.
Shinra wants to be recognised as a hero despite the sinister reputation attached to his smile and powers. Company 8 gives him duties, colleagues and a way to act on that ambition. Its mission combines immediate rescue and combat with a much larger unanswered question about the phenomenon threatening ordinary people.
The training pose shows that a fire soldier’s work includes learning how to move and fight with others. Shinra arrives with a rare ability, but a brigade is also an organisation whose members bring different skills and expectations. That workplace provides a steady human scale for the larger mystery of combustion. The first season introduces the crew and its problem rather than completing the later television story.