wildfire

UK/ˈwaɪldˌfaɪər/US/ˈwaɪldˌfaɪər/

nounB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,405 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: wildfires

A wildfire is a blaze spreading fast through open country. Spread like wildfire.

Some landscapes need fire to clear old growth, which is why suppressing every one stores up a worse one. The phrase spread like wildfire is now used of news far more than of flames.

Definitions of wildfire

1nounwildfireA blaze spreading fast through open country.B1+
“The wildfire took four thousand hectares in two days.”

wildfire is a fire.

Where it comes from

Old English wilde fyr is wild plus fire, and once named an incendiary weapon as well as a natural blaze.

Old English
wilde fȳr
Middle English
wilde fyr
English, today
wildfire

Middle English wilde fyr, wilde fire, wylde fyre, from Old English wilde fȳr. by surface analysis, en + wild + fire.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

wildfire in the wild

During the 2020 wildfire season alone, over 8,100 fires contributed to the burning of nearly 4.5 million acres of land.
List of California wildfires
The Comanche Complex Fires were four fires that burned together in Arvin, California forming the largest fire of the 2011 California wildfire season.
Comanche Complex Fires
The Wall Fire was a wildfire in 2017 near Bangor in Eastern Butte County, in California, in the United States.
Wall Fire
The Alamo Fire was a wildfire in San Luis Obispo County, in California in the United States.
Alamo Fire (2017)
The 2018 wildfire season was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in the world.
2018 California wildfires

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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