Fire is very useful to us - but if treated carelessly, it can be VERY dangerous.

Fire is the result of a reaction caused by a Fuel being Heated to it's flashpoint in the presence of Oxygen.

Fuel, Heat and Oxygen make the Fire Triangle, which you can read more about on our Fire Triangle pages.

Where did Fire come from?

Fire has existed on Earth for billions of years.

In fact, it's existed off Earth for even longer - Stars (including the Sun) themselves are burning balls of gas.

Long before people, dinosaurs or any living creatures, fire has existed - caused by such things as lava flows and lightning strikes.

When the earth was first formed, the rocks and mountains were so hot they were molten. Fires burned all over the Earth for many years.

Gradually, as the earth cooled and the atmosphere formed, the rocks cooled and solidified. But, molten rock still exists under the surface (the crust) of the earth and sometimes erupts through volcanoes as lava.

Lava is incredibly hot and will burn anything that stands in its way. Trees will burst into flames before the lava even touches them - all because of the heat produced by the flowing lava.

As well as lava, lightning can also create fire.

Lightning is a big charge of electricity that can reach from clouds to the ground or to other clouds. It can start fires and it is strong enough to hurt or kill people. Lightning also helps nature by putting nitrogen in the ground for plants to use.

There are thousands of lightning strikes every day. Scientists think that lightning hits somewhere on the earth about 100 times every second. More people are killed by lightning than by any other kind of storm, including hurricanes and tornadoes. In the whole world, lightning kills more than 1,000 people in a year, maybe many more. A lot more people are hurt by lightning than are killed by it and many of those who live are hurt very badly.

How did we get fire?

Early cavemen were probably very scared of fire when they first saw it. But, they eventually learnt that it could help them by providing warmth and scaring off dangerous animals.

Cavemen would have first obtained fire from natural sources such as a tree that had been struck by lightning.

They would carry the branch back to their cave and use it to start a fire, that they would need to keep burning for as long as possible.

They would also use fire to help them hunt animals, but it was a long time afterwards that anyone had the bright idea of cooking their food!

Can you think of other uses for fire that cave people might have had?

For example, in Greek Myth, Prometheus (who had created mankind out of clay) stole fire from the gods and gave it to men so that they might cook and keep warm.

When Zeus (the king of the gods) found out what had happened, he punished Prometheus by having him chained to a rock. Each day, his liver would be pecked out by vultures. Each night, his liver would grow back ready for the next day. Which wasn't very nice.