Fire
Fire was energy produced by rapid oxidation. A splinter of Scaroth showed mankind how to make fire. (TV: City of Death [+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)"]) By roughly 100,000 BC, fire had become a precious commodity, as relatively few humans knew how to recreate it once it was snuffed out; in some tribes, this knowledge was held only by a select few.
The First Doctor and his companions Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Susan Foreman encountered a tribe looking for this knowledge. Ian ultimately showed Za, a tribal leader whose predecessor was unable to give him the secret before dying, how to make fire. (TV: An Unearthly Child [+]Loading...["An Unearthly Child (TV story)"])
As a race of immortals who rapidly healed from any injury, the Ashtallans had never had the need to develop fire, their bodies regulating their temperature, until Ian Chesterton introduced them to it. (AUDIO: The Invention of Death [+]Loading...["The Invention of Death (audio story)"])
On one planet, the natives had not needed to know how to make fire, as their world had the same mild temperature all the time. The Second Doctor taught them how to make fire in order to destroy the Kraals which were plaguing them. (COMIC: Freedom by Fire [+]Loading...["Freedom by Fire (comic story)"])
On one planet, the Fourth Doctor taught the Meerags how to make fire and use it against the giant mutants that were plaguing them. (COMIC: The Mutants [+]Loading...["The Mutants (comic story)"])
According to Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from heaven and gave it to the first men. When the Fourth Doctor met Prometheus and recounted this story, the Olympian corrected him, saying that he actually stole the spark of life. (COMIC: The Life Bringer! [+]Loading...["The Life Bringer! (comic story)"])
The Tenth Doctor once commented that fire was "so fun to look at! But bad for the skin!" (COMIC: Ground Control [+]Loading...["Ground Control (comic story)"])
The Twelfth Doctor claimed to know of a race made of sentient gas who threw fireballs as a "friendly wave". (TV: Flatline [+]Loading...["Flatline (TV story)"])
Incidents involving fire[[edit] | edit source]
The First Doctor accidentally inspired Nero to start the Great Fire of Rome in 64. (TV: "Inferno" [+]Part of The Romans, Loading...{"namedep":"Inferno (4)","1":"The Romans (TV story)"})
In Troy, Cassandra ordered the Doctor's TARDIS to be burned as an offering to the gods, but this was stopped when Vicki emerged from it. (TV: The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"])
The Third Doctor saw an alternate Earth consumed by fire. (TV: Inferno [+]Loading...["Inferno (TV story)"]) This memory was used against him by the Keller Machine. (TV: The Mind of Evil [+]Loading...["The Mind of Evil (TV story)"])
Murray Stevens set fire to the computer room of the complex where the Gemini Plan was being carried out in an attempt to sabotage the project; however, the fire was quickly extinguished. (COMIC: Gemini Plan [+]Loading...["Gemini Plan (TV Action comic story)"])
Ky used fire to ward off Solonian mutants. (TV: The Mutants [+]Loading...["The Mutants (TV story)"])
During the Fourth Doctor's sacrifice by the Deons, fire was used to burn the ropes holding a rock above him. (TV: Meglos [+]Loading...["Meglos (TV story)"])
In Victorian era London, Leela savagely attacked the Linktons' teleportation device. It sparked and started a fire which went on to melt the Linktons present, as they were mostly made of wax. (PROSE: The Living Wax [+]Loading...["The Living Wax (short story)"])
The Great Fire of London started when a Terileptil weapon overloaded in a building on Pudding Lane in London in September 1666. Much of the city was burnt, but it proved helpful in clearing the bubonic plague from the city. (TV: The Visitation [+]Loading...["The Visitation (TV story)"])
In 1983, a teenage Ace burnt down Gabriel Chase mansion in anger over her friend's flat being firebombed. (TV: Ghost Light [+]Loading...["Ghost Light (TV story)"])
In Alaska in 1994, the Fifth Doctor set fire to Shaun Brett's memorial to his father to kill the Permians inside. (AUDIO: The Land of the Dead [+]Loading...["The Land of the Dead (audio story)"])
A Dalek, sent to capture Schalk, caught fire when Elizabeth Klein poured alcohol on its gunstick when it tried to exterminate the Seventh Doctor, causing the tavern to catch fire with it. (AUDIO: Daleks Among Us [+]Loading...["Daleks Among Us (audio story)"])
The Tenth Doctor used a burning stick to light a funeral pyre for the Saxon Master. (TV: Last of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"])
In 2011, when the Teselecta disguised as the Eleventh Doctor was shot by River Song in order to fake the Doctor's death, it appeared to fall dead. A funeral pyre was lit for it by Amy Pond, Rory Williams and a future version of River, using gasoline provided by Canton Everett Delaware III. The Doctor later claimed that his doppelganger was "barely singed" by the pyre. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut [+]Loading...["The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)"], The Wedding of River Song [+]Loading...["The Wedding of River Song (TV story)"])
Jack Harkness once encountered a firebird, a creature literally made out of fire. (TV: Immortal Sins [+]Loading...["Immortal Sins (TV story)"])
While possessed by the Beast, Toby Zed breathed fire. (TV: The Satan Pit [+]Loading...["The Satan Pit (TV story)"])
In a house in 1889, Sarah Jane Smith and Emily Morris discovered an echo from the future showing two children suffocating in a house fire. Using the chronosteel key, Emily saved the children. (TV: Lost in Time [+]Loading...["Lost in Time (TV story)"])
In 1911, the destruction of Sutekh in the time tunnel set the priory on the future site of UNIT HQ on fire, burning it to the ground. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"])
Rhoda Hoffman's parents were killed in a fire when she was a baby. (COMIC: The Broken Man [+]Loading...["The Broken Man (comic story)"])
When the Ninth Doctor blew up Henrik's, the explosion set fire to the store on 4 March 2005. (TV: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"])
The London Eye was dramatically referred to as a "wheel of fire" on the Who is Doctor Who? website in the aftermath of the Dummy Massacre in March 2005. (PROSE: Dummy Massacre [+]Loading...["Dummy Massacre (short story)"])
During the Miracle in 2011, humans marked category 1 and category 0 were sent to overflow camps to be incinerated. (TV: The Categories of Life [+]Loading...["The Categories of Life (TV story)"], End of the Road [+]Loading...["End of the Road (TV story)"])
While attempting to maintain a hold on the fan controls for Platform One, Jabe burnt to death. (TV: The End of the World [+]Loading...["The End of the World (TV story)"])
Pyroviles could breathe fire. One such Pyrovile disintegrated the human servant Rombus with its breath. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii [+]Loading...["The Fires of Pompeii (TV story)"])
In the early 21st century, an emergency services officer tried burning the trees around Green Park tube station in London. The trees failed to catch fire as, according to the Twelfth Doctor, the trees "with[held] the oxygen" and "smother[ed] the fire". (TV: In the Forest of the Night [+]Loading...["In the Forest of the Night (TV story)"])
When the self-destruct of a Cyberon pod was triggered by Giles in 2021, its interior was engulfed in flames, taking out the Cyberon pilot, shortly before the ship exploded altogether. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure [+]Loading...["The Only Cure (home video)"])
