The opening incident at the agricultural-products facility is based on the real-life ammonium nitrate explosion at West Fertilizer Company in West, TX, on April 17, 2013. Fifteen people died in the fire and explosion, including ten firefighters from the West Fire Department. The real-life fire, however, was arson and not electrical.
Captain Owen Strand (portrayed by Rob Lowe) and TK Strand's (portrayed by Ronen Rubinstein) firehouse in New York was #252, which is exactly double the number of their new firehouse in Austin, #126.
Jon Foster plays Michelle Blake's (Liv Tyler) sisters ex-boyfriend. In real life Foster is married to Chelsea Tallarico, Tyler's half-sister.
During the scene in which the security guard at the fertilizer plant is listening to a football game on the radio, the audio track describes the University of Texas Longhorns scoring, but the closed captioning lists the Longhorns' rivals, the Texas A&M University Aggies, as the winning team.