I don't.

I'm somewhat indifferent to fire, though I enjoy a good camp or stove fire.

I grew up with a coal/wood kitchen stove and a wood fire heater. (The house had one electric outlet, three oil lamps, a hand pump in the kitchen for water, an outhouse, and a crank telephone and party line). I'm of the last generation for whom fire was commonplace.

I suppose I think of fire much the same as I think of religion: I'm not personally fascinated with it, but I am fascinated with why other people are so fascinated with it.

Why is fire so fascinating?

Fire is a technology that we've largely abandoned, having replaced it with electricity and central heating. But it's still a technology, and the rule still holds: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Even if the technology is archaic.

So it's not surprising that people today feel spiritually charged by fireplay. It's an adrenaline-high version of steam punk. A dangerous form of retro. It's dragons' breath on your skin. It affirms your relationship with the elements, with the natural.

It's kitsch with pain.

And while fire is dangerous, it looks vastly more dangerous than it actually is (or there'd be many more crispy critters among us), which makes it an easy entre to personal coolness.

Fireplay is also like in the early days of computers, where the nerdy kids found that, unlike their teachers and parents, computers (and fire) never lie to you.

If you don't respect it, it will hurt you, and then scar you. But if you do respect it, and if you inquire deeply enough into its needs and demands, others will recognize your mastery, your special relationship with this ancient and fearsome element, and its embers will seem to glow deep from within your eyes, and they will forget your years of work in theatre arts, literature, political science, and social history, and call you "the fire guy."
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