Fire in the context of Fire pan

Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis.

Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BC with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the arche (a word that could take the meaning of "origin", "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, apeiron (the unlimited), and air. Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, ta panta rhei, and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BC. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced philosophical relativism. The Pre-Socratics have had significant impact on several concepts of Western philosophy, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology.

Object manipulation is a form of dexterity play or performance in which one or more people physically interact with one or more objects. Many object manipulation skills are recognised circus skills. Other object manipulation skills are linked to sport, magic, and everyday objects or practices. Many object manipulation skills use special props made for that purpose: examples include the varied circus props such as balls, clubs, hoops, rings, poi, staff, and devil sticks; magic props such as cards and coins; sports equipment such as nunchaku and footballs. Many other objects can also be used for manipulation skills. Object manipulation with ordinary items may be considered to be object manipulation when the object is used in an unusually stylised or skilful way (such as in flair bartending) or for a physical interaction outside of its socially acknowledged context or differently from its original purpose.

Object manipulators may also be practitioners of fire performance, which is essentially object manipulation where specially designed props are soaked in fuel and lit on fire.

The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators (especially at night), a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed human activity to continue into the darker and colder hours of the evening.

Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 1.7 to 2.0 million years ago (Mya). Evidence for the "microscopic traces of wood ash" as controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning roughly 1 million years ago, has wide scholarly support. Some of the earliest known traces of controlled fire were found at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge, Israel/Golan Heights, and dated to ~790,000 years ago. At the site, archaeologists also found the oldest likely evidence (mainly, fish teeth that had been heated deep in a cave) for the controlled use of fire to cook food ~780,000 years ago. However, some studies suggest cooking started ~1.8 million years ago.

A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Some natural forest ecosystems depend on wildfire. Modern forest management often engages in prescribed burns to mitigate fire risk and promote natural forest cycles. However, controlled burns can turn into wildfires by mistake.

Wildfires can be classified by cause of ignition, physical properties, combustible material present, and the effect of weather on the fire. Wildfire severity results from a combination of factors such as available fuels, physical setting, and weather. Climatic cycles with wet periods that create substantial fuels, followed by drought and heat, often precede severe wildfires. These cycles have been intensified by climate change, and can be exacerbated by curtailment of mitigation measures (such as budget or equipment funding), or sheer enormity of the event.

Risk is the possibility of something bad happening, comprising a level of uncertainty about the effects and implications of an activity, particularly negative and undesirable consequences.

Risk theory, assessment, and management are applied but substantially differ in different practice areas, such as business, economics, environment, finance, information technology, health, insurance, safety, security, and privacy. The international standard for risk management, ISO 31000, provides general guidelines and principles on managing risks faced by organizations.

Deflagration (Lat: de + flagrare, 'to burn down') is subsonic combustion in which a pre-mixed flame propagates through an explosive or a mixture of fuel and oxidizer. Deflagrations in high and low explosives or fuel–oxidizer mixtures may transition to a detonation depending upon confinement and other factors. Most fires found in daily life are diffusion flames. Deflagrations with flame speeds in the range of 1 m/s differ from detonations which propagate supersonically with detonation velocities in the range of km/s.

A hearth (/hɑːrθ/) is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial wall behind a hearth), fireplace, oven, smoke hood, or chimney. Hearths are usually composed of masonry such as brick or stone. For millennia, the hearth was such an integral part of a home, usually its central and most important feature, that the concept has been generalized to refer to a homeplace or household, as in the terms "hearth and home" and "keep the home fires burning". In the modern era, since the advent of central heating, hearths are usually less central to most people's daily life because the heating of the home is instead done by a furnace or a heating stove, and cooking is instead done with a kitchen stove/range (combination cooktop and oven) alongside other home appliances; thus many homes built in the 20th and 21st centuries do not have hearths. Nonetheless, many homes still have hearths, which still help serve the purposes of warmth, cooking, and comfort.

Before the industrial era, a common design was to place a hearth in the middle of the room as an open hearth, with the smoke rising through the room to a smoke hole in the roof. In later designs which usually had a more solid and continuous roof, the hearth was instead placed to the side of the room and provided with a chimney.

Fire performance is a group of performance arts or skills that involve the manipulation of fire. Fire performance typically involves equipment or other objects made with one or more wicks which are designed to sustain a large enough flame to create a visual effect.

Fire performance includes skills based on juggling, baton twirling, poi spinning, and other forms of object manipulation. It also includes skills such as fire breathing, fire eating, and body burning; sometimes called fakir skills. Fire performance has various styles of performance including fire dancing; the use of fire as a finale in an otherwise non-fire performance; and the use of fire skills as 'dangerous' stunts. Performances can be done as choreographed routines to music (this type being related to dance or rhythmic gymnastics); as freestyle (performed to music or not) performances; or performed with vocal interaction with the audience. Some aspect of fire performance can be found in a wide variety of cultural traditions and rituals from around the world.

Ecological succession is the process of how species compositions change in an ecological community over time.

The two main categories of ecological succession are primary succession and secondary succession. Primary succession occurs after the initial colonization of a newly created habitat with no living organisms. Secondary succession occurs after a disturbance such as fire, habitat destruction, or a natural disaster destroys a pre-existing community.

Pyromancy (Ancient Greek ἐμπυρία (empyria), divination by fire) is the art of divination by means of fire or flames.

The word pyromancy is adapted from the Greek word pyromanteia, from pyr (πῦρ, fire) and manteia (μαντεία, divination by means of). Its first known use was in the 1300s, and it evolved into the Late Latin word piromantia and Old French word piromance.

Cooking, also known as cookery, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire, to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, to boiling and blanching in water, reflecting local conditions, techniques and traditions. Cooking is an aspect of all human societies and a cultural universal.

Types of cooking also depend on the skill levels and training of the cooks. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. The term "culinary arts" usually refers to cooking that is primarily focused on the aesthetic beauty of the presentation and taste of the food.

Fire making, fire lighting or fire craft is the process of artificially starting a fire. It requires completing the fire triangle, usually by heating tinder above its autoignition temperature.

Fire is an essential tool for human survival and the use of fire was important in early human cultural history since the Lower Paleolithic. Today, it is a key component of Scouting, woodcraft and bushcraft.

Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary device is used to initiate a fire is often described as a "firebombing".

Although simple incendiary bombs have been used to destroy buildings since the start of gunpowder warfare, World War I saw the first use of strategic bombing from the air to damage the morale and economy of the enemy, such as the German Zeppelin air raids conducted on London. The Chinese wartime capital of Chongqing was firebombed by the Imperial Japanese starting in early 1939 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. London, Coventry, and many other British cities were firebombed during the Blitz by Nazi Germany. Most large German cities were extensively firebombed starting in 1942, and almost all large Japanese cities were firebombed during the last six months of World War II.

In computer security, a threat is a potential negative action or event enabled by a vulnerability that results in an unwanted impact to a computer system or application.

A threat can be either a negative "intentional" event (i.e. hacking: an individual cracker or a criminal organization) or an "accidental" negative event (e.g. the possibility of a computer malfunctioning, or the possibility of a natural disaster event such as an earthquake, a fire, or a tornado) or otherwise a circumstance, capability, action, or event (incident is often used as a blanket term). A threat actor who is an individual or group that can perform the threat action, such as exploiting a vulnerability to actualise a negative impact. An exploit is a vulnerability that a threat actor used to cause an incident.

In ecology, a disturbance is a change in environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in an ecosystem. Disturbances often act quickly and with great effect, to alter the physical structure or arrangement of biotic and abiotic elements. A disturbance can also occur over a long period of time and can impact the biodiversity within an ecosystem. Ecological disturbances include fires, flooding, storms, insect outbreaks, trampling, human presence, earthquakes, plant diseases, infestations, volcanic eruptions, impact events, etc.

Not only invasive species can have a profound effect on an ecosystem, native species can also cause disturbance by their behavior. Disturbance forces can have profound immediate effects on ecosystems and can, accordingly, greatly alter the natural community’s population size or species richness. Because of these and the impacts on populations, disturbance determines the future shifts in dominance, various species successively becoming dominant as their life history characteristics, and associated life-forms, are exhibited over time.