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What is the collective noun for fire?

A ____ of fires.

To clarify: This is actually a school curriculum text question and I have never heard of such a collective noun. This is an example I can think of:

Suppose that several fires raged yesterday in the city and the newspapers wanted to say "Yesterday the fire department fought a whole bunch of fires". What word can replace "a whole bunch" in the previous statement?

Vincent Ramdhanie
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  • Do you mean ... collective noun for "fires"? A collective noun isn't something that you'd generally use with any noun in the singular. (Having said that, I don't know of any collective noun for fires; I can only think of "spate", but I don't think that's quite what you're looking for). –  Sep 08 '12 at 17:44
  • I thought that the question was clear enough. My apologies. I was thinking...a herd of cows, a pride of lions etc. A what of fires? – Vincent Ramdhanie Sep 08 '12 at 18:00
  • This is actually a question in a school curriculum book and I have never heard of such a collective noun before. That's why I ask here. – Vincent Ramdhanie Sep 08 '12 at 18:00
  • @VincentRamdhanie I saw a blog post asking the same question. I can only say that the schoolbook appears to be asking a wrongheaded question. The curriculum for English language learners shouldn't be considered "the Authority" and can sometimes mislead students for the sake of simplicity (indeed, there is no such authority for English). – Zairja Sep 08 '12 at 18:05
  • I would suggest a kindle of fires :| – coleopterist Sep 08 '12 at 18:42
  • I'd say that this question was never about collective nouns, that just being how the inital vagueness was erroneously resolved by others. It should probably be retagged and slightly edited to reflect the actual question rather than reflect a series of misapprehensions and mis-edits. – SevenSidedDie Sep 08 '12 at 19:15
  • The term 'collective noun' is being used in an unusually broadened sense here. Normally, it refers to an idiomatic (ie commonly used and accepted) (well, in some cases just 'accepted'; a dout of cats) term to describe a collection of items. A pride of lions. An armada of ships. A band of musicians. The terms are essentially fixed phrases (even, according to Wikipedia, an aurora of polar bears and an implausibility of gnus). They appear in lists (some, obviously tongue-in-cheek). However, we seem to be even further left-field, even off-list, here. 'Number', then 'group', 'outbreak' of ... – Edwin Ashworth Feb 04 '20 at 15:52
  • fires' seem the most commonly encountered periphrastic quantifiers. Some have defining content (a 'rash' and an 'outbreak' are probably fairly concentrated occurrences, an 'epidemic' more widespread, while a 'series' is sequential either locationally or temporally). But a badly phrased question. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 04 '20 at 15:52

5 Answers5

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For what it's worth, if there's an official word for a collection of fires, it isn't in this list.

That said, I seem to remember hearing the term rash of fires more than once. That phrase appears more than 400 times in published books, and a Google search for the exact term (in quotation marks) returns over 100,000 results, many of which are news articles.

J.R.
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  • +1 From the entry for rash: a large number of instances in a short period. I've also seen a rash of infections, suicides, murders, . – Zairja Sep 08 '12 at 18:42
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    @Zairja: You mean like, "a rash of bad comments on EL&U"? :^) – J.R. Sep 08 '12 at 18:44
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    LOL, that burns (careful, you're playing with fire here). . . – Zairja Sep 08 '12 at 18:46
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    A "rash" of fires is simply descriptive, not a collective noun. It's a recurring idiom, is all. – SevenSidedDie Sep 08 '12 at 19:12
  • @SevenSidedDie: Fair enough, but suppose that several fires raged yesterday in the city, and the newspapers wanted to say, "Yesterday the fire department fought a whole bunch of fires". What word can replace "a whole bunch" in that previous statement? I'd think that rash would fit the bill. – J.R. Sep 08 '12 at 19:18
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    Rash fits perfectly: "a series of unpleasant and unexpected occurrences: a rash of forest fires". – Izkata Sep 08 '12 at 23:57
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I believe you are asking for a collective noun, and for fire there isn't one. You could have a "wall of fire" or "blaze of fire". What are you trying to achieve by using a collective noun here?

If there's something in particular you're trying to describe, consider a synonym: pyre, flame, conflagration and so on. Keep in mind that a construction like "pyre of fire" would be considered a pleonasm.

Based upon your edit, the nature of the question is totally different. In this case, why not go with several (your first inclination), series as Jim suggests, or any number of synonyms:

a handful of fires
a number of fires
many fires
separate fires
numerous fires

Zairja
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  • Thanks Zairja. This seems to be the most appropriate advice. – Vincent Ramdhanie Sep 08 '12 at 18:40
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    I would add to this very good list a group of fires, a string of fires and a series of fires. These are not specific to fires. As you know, fires are not social enough to commonly run in packs, herds or schools. – Mike Sep 09 '12 at 21:07
  • " a conflagration of fires" does have a few hits on google. – JeffUK Sep 28 '20 at 12:29
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Conversely, "fire" is frequently used as a mass noun, but "a fire" refers to a discrete entity. Interestingly, "fire" as a count noun does allow cumulative reference, since if two fires join in a forest, they are referred to as one fire.

That being said, there isn't a collective noun for fire.

Nora
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  • The last sentence in your quote has a "dubious" tacked onto it in Wikipedia. At least in America, I have heard a "single fire" described in a sentence like "the fires raged". Therefore I wouldn't consider that rule conclusive. – Zairja Sep 08 '12 at 17:23
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    @Nora: Fire is a noun lying in the murky area between the concrete and the abstract. It is concrete in that it 'consists of' reacting chemicals and their combustion products, with discernible luminous energy and heat evolved. But the oxidation process and therefore the signs of burning are transient. Fire often spreads, and pockets of fire can form by splitting, they can re-join (in forests say); and, depending on the size and spacing of pockets, it would often be nonsensical to try to identify each individual one. With a Fire Department receiving different shouts, it is a different matter. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 08 '12 at 19:24
  • +1 for a forthright opinion on this. Made-up collective nouns are a blight on the English language, and it’s good to remind people that they aren’t needed. –  Feb 05 '20 at 06:59
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The textbook you’re referring to might be looking for something like blaze, conflagration, holocaust, or inferno.

Nonetheless, those are all words for a significant fire, not for some collection of several fires.

You might, however, sneak by with pyroclasm, although that is related to volcanic activity and not quite right.

tchrist
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You could say "a sea of flames".

RegDwigнt
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wondawong
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  • It will be always helpful if you also tell why you think that would be a suitable and good answer. Such as a reference to previous usage or a dictionary entry, and so on. However, try not to offer personal opinion/ speculative answers in general. By the way, collective nouns are prescribed terms in English vocabulary. – Kris Dec 18 '12 at 15:32
  • However, the question is about the word "fire(s)", not about the word "flame(s)". Can we say "a sea of fires"? – herisson Feb 11 '18 at 19:50