Wait, what?
Mark Theissen / Hulton Archive / Getty
Oh, fire, is there any problem you can't solve?
See, a fire needs three things to keep expanding -- heat, oxygen, and fuel. Deny a fire any one of those things and it stops. What's the best way to get rid of fuel? Use it up. It's the wildland firefighter's job to set off many smaller fires in the path of the main blaze to create a barren fire-wasteland. We do have awesome arsonist porn like drip torches and flare guns (yes, some of us get to be literal firemen), but mostly we use chainsaws and other hand tools to remove fuel sources and dig lines so the fire can't spread as easily. Then we clear the area behind our friendly fire so it can't come back at us and set it off to go meet with the enemy fire. They have sloppy drunken flame sex, merge ... and then realize they've both been cut off from their fuel.
Don't worry about it, Abstract Concept of Fire: Lust makes fools of us all.
Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images