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This text is taken from the author’s book, Fire: A Brief History. In this book, Stephen Pyne distinguishes three fires. The First Fire is the first fire proper, the “natural” fire, whose appearance predates that of human beings and which therefore occurs without human intervention (thanks to lightning, for example); the Second Fire is the anthropogenic fire (aboriginal fire, agricultural fire), the one that humans have used since they acquired control of it to burn biomass (trees, grasses, etc.); the Third Fire is the industrial fire, both the fruit and factor of the industrialization of society, burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas, etc.) in special combustion appliances. The characteristics of this industrial fire are presented here, as well as its ecological meaning: its relation with the other fires, its environmental impact.