‘Home Fires’ creator was shocked by the show’s cancellation

The writer of Home Fires has revealed that he fully expected the series to be renewed for a third season.

ITV’s period drama explored the lives of Women’s Institute members on the Home Front during the Second World War in a rural Cheshire community.

Inspired by the book Jambusters by Julie Summers, Home Fires launched in May 2015 and returned for a second season in April 2016.

However, ITV announced in May last year that they would not be commissioning any more episodes, despite Season 2 ending on a massive cliffhanger with a fighter plane nosediving into the roof of one of the village homes.

Creator Simon Block told Radio Times of his surprise at the news: “It’s always difficult to gauge how things are going to go so you don’t quite know what the criteria for whether something’s going to carry on or not.

“It had held its audience, it had won its slots, figures were strong as far as I was told so in that sense I guess it was a surprise in that it went against what we were expecting based on the criteria we were told things get judged by.”

The writer was touched by the reaction from fans though. He said: “I’ve been blown away. When the news came out that it had been cancelled, suddenly everything went ballistic and you really get a sense of how passionately people feel about it. That was really a bit of a shock.”

The first two seasons of Home Fires are available to buy on DVD now.

An online petition calling for the show’s return now has nearly 50,000 supporters.