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fire fighting

(Encyclopedia)fire fighting, the use of strategy, personnel, and apparatus to extinguish, to confine, or to escape from fire. Ancient Rome is known to have had a fire department consisting by the 1st cent. of app...

fire engine

(Encyclopedia)fire engine: see fire fighting.

fire extinguisher

(Encyclopedia)fire extinguisher: see fire fighting. ...

fire

(Encyclopedia)fire, the phenomenon of combustion as seen in light, flame, and heat. One of the basic tools of human culture, its use is extremely ancient, predating the existence of Homo sapiens by several hundred ...

fighting fish

(Encyclopedia)fighting fish: see betta.

prize fighting

(Encyclopedia)prize fighting: see boxing.

fire, forest

(Encyclopedia)fire, forest: see forestry.

fire clay

(Encyclopedia)fire clay, clay that has a high degree of resistance to heat. By the best standards it should have a fusion point higher than 1,600℃. The term “fire clay” is commonly held to exclude kaolin and ...

fire-eaters

(Encyclopedia)fire-eaters, in U.S. history, term applied by Northerners to proslavery extremists in the South in the two decades before the Civil War. Edmund Ruffin, Robert B. Rhett, and William L. Yancey were the ...

fire escape

(Encyclopedia)fire escape, in architecture, device, either fixed or movable, to facilitate escape from a burning building. In the United States the term usually is applied to the common iron balconies and stairways...