Books:
- Hell on Earth: The Wildfire Pandemic (Porter, 2009)
- Firestorm in Paradise (Crues, 1998)
- Monster Fire at Minong (Matthias, 2010)
- The Monster Reared its Ugly Head (Paxon, 2007)
- Devil in the Northwoods: A Novel based on the Metz, Michigan, Wildfire (Shiel, 2005)
- Inferno! The Devastating Firestorms of October 1993 (O.C. Register, 1993)
- A Night of Terror, Devastation, Suffering and Awful Woe: The Spokane Fire of 1889 (Nolan, 1989)
This trope is, of course, linked to and inextricably supports the aforementioned “fire-as-battlefield” trope. Fire in this trope is regarded, in Pyne’s words, as “an environmental evil.” In Pyne’s book World Fire he notes how “the bushfire became a set piece of Australian literature and art, an icon of all that was alien, unassimilable, and threatening about this ‘land of contrarieties.””[1] This perspective is certainly not limited to Australia, as is evident in the titles of the books listed above: “Hell on Earth,” “Firestorm in Paradise,” Monster Fire,” “Devil,” “Devastating Firestorms,” etc. While many of these books are more nuanced within the pages, the titles and covers alone certainly portray fire as unmitigated destruction.
It should be noted the perspective of “Fire as Evil” did not create the “Fire as Battlefield” trope. In the WUI, fire would be fought, and likely on the same industrial scale, that it is today, regardless of whether it was considered good or bad. At that point, fighting fire is a battle, regardless. What the “Fire as Dragon” trope does is elevate those fighting the fire to dragonslayers; it underpins the archetypal valor often attributed to courageous firefighters.
A talk given by Tom Lyons, Professor of English at Colorado State University, titled “Representations of Fire in the Bible,”[2] lends credence to how archetypal this trope truly is. According to Lyons, the Bible is “one of the Western world’s seminal sources of ideas, shaping the way we think and feel about a topic,” and with the patterns of Scripture installed in our minds, we are “very likely to associate fire with some transgression or evil.” Fire in the Bible is a “vehicle for judgment and punishment”; as it responds to human sin and “tests and purifies,” it symbolizes God. Whereas sometimes God appears in fire, as a comforting and reassuring presence, as in Moses’s encounter with the burning bush, more often, fire embodies a consuming God, a jealous God. Malachi says that God is “like a refiner’s fire”; John the Baptist declares, “I baptize you with water; He shall baptize with you with fire.”
Fire, in this light, is something to be feared, the bearer of grief and tragedy.
[1] (Pyne, World Fire, pg 36)
[2] The talk was given at the “Facing Fire: Lessons from the Ashes” conference convened by the Center of the American West in 2001. More about this talk and conference can be found at http://centerwest.org/projects/more/facing-fire/
Wildfire Humanities 