Word on the street is – Tommy Gavin is going to jail.

And if that weren’t enough for the New York City firefighter (Denis Leary) to worry about, his chief has had a stroke, his daughter has moved in with a wannabe rock star and the new baby only stops crying when Tommy’s wife, Janet, is calling her husband names most newspapers won’t print but roll right off the tongue of the quirky characters that populate shows on FX such as “Rescue Me.”

Leary’s ode to the men who risk their lives for their fellow human beings, their dogs, cats, birds and stuffed animals, kicks off its fourth season tonight.

A sober Gavin begins the new season under suspicion of setting the fire that in last year’s finale consumed the beach house his cousin’s wife bought with her Sept. 11 widow’s money so she and Gavin could live happily ever after when he retired. Only trouble was, he didn’t retire. So Sheila (Callie Thorne) drugged him and “accidentally” set fire to the place.

She wants the insurance money but he can’t remember enough of what happened to satisfy the insurance investigators or the arson squad. The tale Sheila spins about how the fire did start has the self-described stud reading magazine ads for Viagra when he’s not trying to calm the new baby – who may be his son or his nephew – for Janet (Andrea Roth) who’s beginning to believe the kid hates her. Hey, it must be Tommy’s.

Even his fellow firefighters have started to lose faith in him. Gavin’s lieutenant, “Lou” (John Scurti), is so convinced the guy is going to jail that he’s transferring the firehouse out of the hockey league, where Gavin was a shining star, to the basketball league. And, he’s courting probie Bart (Larenz Tate) to join Ladder Co. 62, when he’s not courting his new love, the insatiable and unholy ex-nun Theresa (Susan Misner).

As the new season begins, everybody, including Uncle Teddy (Lenny Clarke), free from jail but not his prison bride Ellie (Patti D’Arbanville), is just trying to cope with what life’s throwing at them and hoping the hardballs get softer soon.

Four years after “Rescue Me” premiered, Leary and his writing partner, Peter Tolan, who plays Lou’s replacement in several episodes this season, still manage to regularly wring every emotion from viewers while refusing to compromise the top-notch quality other shows lose halfway into the third season. The show is a barnburner and if viewers don’t willingly follow it from Tuesday to Wednesday nights, Leary and the guys at Ladder 62 just may have to rescue them from their own lethargy.