Fire destroys, but it also provides us with warmth, is a major means of converting energy for production of electricity, and in its raw form is both heat and light.
Over a fire, you get air movements, put a pan of water or sprinkle on water and you get steam.
In many climates a fire does not totally destroy but is part of the cycle of life, and the plants have developed a system where the fire cleans up old growth and stimulates the growth from existing plants and the germination of seeds.
Within just about all belief systems throughout history fire has come second in importance to water amongst the elements.
Witches in times gone by at several points of the year took their animals between to fires as part of their ritual, and fire is still used in many rituals from Guy Fawkes and all the other fire festivals at that time of the year thought the world and in the wide use of candles in all religions and belief systems, and for calibrations as on birthday cakes. On special occasions even today beacon fires are lit.
Sacred flames have been a feature of many beliefs, with keepers of the flame given special rites or titles. In the UK all fires were at one time lit from a sacred flame annually, and these sacred flames developed after merger within the Christian faith to form the basis for the daises structure.
Other witchcraft traditions have had sacred flames and a great deal of legends around them, and in particular the groups like the Fryske, and Fire Angels, that claim decadency from the Oera Linda book, and people going back over 6,000 years, as well as those who have Greek, Egyptian and Indian backgrounds.
German folk magic uses a stone, it can be any smooth stone that is not a gem and will fit into the hand that is charged with the energy of the flame and used then without the need for a flame to be present in spells, healing and more. It is known as a lighting stone and sometimes a divinity stone. Earl versions were taken from a building destroyed by a lightening strike, and therefore possibly magnetized by the effect. Some Wiccan's equate the fire element with magnetic effect although we would connect this with water as the Druids did.
Fire was a show of power as far as many early witches and religious people were considered and to be able to create it was strong magic in the days of flints or rubbing sticks together. Today the tricks used would no longer be considered magic as they used a crystal lens to act like a magnifying glass to focus the suns rays. Often the crystal was in the end of a staff. The Christian church had a variant of this trick in that they had curved mirror finished dishes or plates that also acted to focus the suns rays and allow spontaneous fire to result from prayer. So would you consider it to have been magic for their time as the rest of the population did not know how it was done. Today we would consider using tricks that the audience did not understand perhaps to be conjuring rather than magic, but the line between these is very narrow.
Safely has to be the answer. Even candles can be dangerous if we don't have them firmly fixed and avoid anything else catching from them. We use large base candles and stand them in metal dishes. If we burn anything over a candle we do this so that it is completely within the metal dish. If you have outer covens, and younger people around we suggest candles are stood in large metal containers in deep sand and no ritual involving loose clothing gets anywhere near them.
When a coven offer a spell to the fire within a magic circle, they will usually do so on a tray or similar, just to avoid the chance of anyone getting burnt.
Candles involve all 4 elements, and therefore are often placed at each of the element positions, north, east, south and west on a magic circle. Fire however is the element to the south and it is candle that is used for burning and item involved in fire spells. It is switched to the element of the East for more powerful magic, see the general page on elements.
The simplest use of fire is with spells written on small pieces of paper and burnt, this is very similar to offering a prayer in other religions. More a request or thank you note than a magical command. This often appeals to those new to witchcraft as you have something to do, but don't expect to see anything scary happen, but burn too much indoors, and you will set off the smoke detectors in your house.
Spells that have something linked to a person, be it a photo, fragment of hair, something that they have handled or worn. This is particularly useful with any type of love spell.
It goes without saying that within a magical circle you never use fireworks, or any form of explosives.
Items can also on occasions quite naturally self combust and just burst into flame and burn, this included people on very rare occasions. Given this we perhaps are far more cachous about spells involving fire than any other. Some voo-do cultures claim to be able to make a person self combust, and many water witches can make flames appear on occasions.
Although we can do an enormous amount of elemental magic with fire and when combining with other elements. The most powerful fire magic is achieved by combining the power of a Water Witches coven with a fire witches coven, and the most likely one we would select would be one of the Fire Angels covens. It is unlikely that you would need this amount of power for anything, except possibly creating a special lightening stone. The all female Fire Angels are quite different to Water Witches, although another form of traditional witch they, are far more modern, created from combining a number of fire traditions and far less involved in craft skills.
Fire of any type is dangerous, anything that is lit is potentially a killer, so always error on the side of extreme caution.
Fire is the only real danger to anyone in being involved in witchcraft
Never for example leave candles burning in a bath, it may be made of or covered in plastic and more than one house has been burnt down in this way. Clothing that you make for ceremonial purposes is not likely to be fire proofed so keep everything away from fire or candles.
With fire outside in the summer remember that grass, hedges, houses and forests will all burn given the slightest chance, so if you are not sure what you are doing leave it to someone who has the knowledge or dig and clear the area and a gap around of al plants and turf, and keep clear of trees and hedges. Do not dance, perform or sleep too near a fire.
If you are celebrating within the countryside, make sure that children cannot get hold of matches or any other way to make fire. Do not get anywhere near hay or straw ricks with anything that could catch them on fire or if you can avoid it at all.
If you are burning anything within a metal container, be aware that the container will get hot and could set anything in contact with it on fire if you hold or touch the container you will burn your hands.
Do not undertake walking on red hot embers routines, this is circus and has no magical element but does have a risk of people getting hurt.
Do not light anything within or under or near a plastic caldron.