I Am Fire

• Angus Paterson, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2011

I am Fire

I require only three components to survive: oxygen, heat and fuel. What am I?
“Fire, fire,” I hear them yell.
“Not a bad guess,” I think.
Here’s another clue: I am a chemical reaction. I burn when oxygen in the air combines with flammable vapours released by the fuel. Again, I ask, what am I?
“Fire! Get the hose Mark, turn on the sprinklers, Jen,” yells a fat man flapping about in thongs and an oversized black ACDC T-shirt.
“Correct,” I thought and raced towards the house, looking for my evening entertainment, perhaps even a light snack.

When Mark reached the shed he clambered up the rickety steps and pushed the old door open revealing the dusty and cobweb lined interior of the neglected outlying building. It had been several years since anyone had ventured inside the shed and he was sure it was infested with many different types of snakes and spiders. The perished fire hose was hung up on a hook on the opposite wall and he crossed the moth eaten carpet to reach it.
There had been quite a few fires in the area over the past couple of years but none of them had ever been as big as this or had ventured so close. Mark fearfully estimated the fire was only around six hundred metres away and approaching fast.
By now, Mark had the hose coiled around his shoulder and was leaving the shed when the box of protective fire clothing caught his eye, he didn’t want to waste anymore time but it could save him and the rest of his family’s life.

Now only a couple of hundred metres away from the house and all of my flames were crackling and sparking hungrily. Deciding it was time to send in the ember attack, I put on an especially big huff and sparks and ash flew high into the air.
“Ahhh, that’ll make my job easier,” I thought and chuckled to my self when I heard the people noticing the arrival of my army. The forward scouts range ahead of the main body, spreading spot fires ahead of the fire front. Victory appears inevitable!

Mark, his sister, Jen and his Mum and Dad, Kerry and Andrew had now donned protective clothing and while Jen and Andrew struggled to attach the hose. Mark had been told to go round the house and spray the walls with water, and was beginning to feel more and more scared as the fire edged closer. He couldn’t rid his mind of the thought that fire can consume your house, your belongings, your family, and even you. Mark was usually a confident sort of boy and thought of himself as tough, but he now felt helpless. Involuntarily letting out a small sob, he forced himself to concentrate on the task willing him-self to grow up. Yesterday, he had thought of himself as invincible, but now he realised he was insignificant when confronted by the all-consuming scale of the fire.

I was now moving into the final phase of my attack, only fifty metres from dinner. Surveying the path in front of me for fuel, I was delighted to see trees and shrubs all the way up to the house. As an extra bonus three petrol drums stood under a tin roof shed along with a tractor and an old rusted Ute. Checking that a plentiful supply of three components of fire, oxygen, heat and fuel was important to its ongoing success. I had no need to worry everything was going to be fine.

The four scared people sat huddled in the bathroom as they looked out at the wall of flames almost at their front yard. Mark had finished spraying the walls and Kerry had taped all the windows up to prevent them from caving in. Jen and Andrew had finally managed to get the hose attached and Andrew had only just come back inside from fighting the fire. All the family could do now was to wait until the fire had passed and hope they had done enough to protect their home.

After devouring the front yard, I was in a tricky situation, the people had done a pretty good job of defending their home. I cautiously approached the house but felt a stinging pain coming from above, reeling backwards I looked upwards and hissed in agony. They had turned on the sprinklers, which made the house very hard to penetrate. I was determined not to give up, still hungry I had become obsessed. My slowing flames were beginning to run out of fuel and I decided to make a final dash towards the house. It was now or never.

In under ten minutes the flames seemed to have died down and were being thwarted by our sprinkler system. The flames seemed to have just gone around the house and only a few spot fires remained outside.
Once Andrew had said it was safe Mark ran outside to get the hose to extinguish the last of the flames.

I panicked when I saw a young boy coming out of the house and picking up the hose. How could it have come to this? Ten minutes ago victory had seemed inevitable, but now the chances of survival looked slim. When I think about it now, the humans had outsmarted me, I should have known the sprinklers were too hard to conquer.
The boy approached me with a relieved expression on his face but he also had a triumphant grin from ear to ear. I did my best to crackle and hiss to scare him off, but to no avail. As if in slow motion, he turned the nozzle and pointed it toward me. Letting out a final hiss of despair, sinking into the ground leaving nothing but smoldering embers. I will return, I am fire.