Some fires burn tame in a Gatlinburg cabin. Some fires burn underwater and are never seen by the human eye. Some fires are spread by wagging tongues, some are set by toddlers left alone with matches in a red one-story house on Long Island. Some fires turn flesh into food, some are swallowed by nearly-naked men in Las Vegas who wear feathers on their hips, and some turn into tornadoes called fire whirls and look like stray ex-wives. Some fires giggle at the human charade of stop, drop, and roll. Some are just hot enough to singe unwanted hair off teenage girls’ arms. Some fires cast my father’s face in a hellish light, and some lap like hungry dogs at marshmallows offered by college kids after midnight under October’s chill stars at Red River Gorge. Some fires are small, but propel bullets into the humid spools of slick intestines. Some fires chase you from New York to Kentucky, to California, to Texas. Some fires look like molten veins winding through the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains toward your townhome, and some go by names like Beau and Cary and leave ropy scars. Some start because of faulty wiring by non-union electricians paid under the table by cheap Chattanooga landlords. Some fires gnaw at your bones and no drug can douse them. Some fires are banked by fat women who wear vermilion lipstick and knee-high black boots. Some fires become conflagrations, ravenous, destroyers of worlds. Some fires keep you from freezing to death but suffocate you with smoke, and some kiss the kindling, but orgasm for tinder. Some fires are put out by floods of cheap beer, some require you to lie yourself down and smother the flame. Some fires do not even leave behind the satisfaction of soot.