These words refer to the burning of something. Fire is the most general of these, referring both to slow or rapid burning, whether of small or great size: a wisp of tissue paper that caught fire , burned for an instant, then went out; a bush fire that covered several miles at the peak of its intensity. Flame may refer to one isolated small fire : reading his watch by the flame of a match. Or it may refer to each momentary fork or tongue of a larger fire : watching the largest log on the fire finally burst into flame . In this case, the word is often used in the plural to express the multitude of such elements making up a fire , or to indicate their diversity of placement: staring for hours into the flickering flames ; The fireman pointed to new flames licking though the roof and the second-story windows of the building.

Both blaze and conflagration stress intensity and rapidness of burning, with blaze functioning as an intensification of fire and conflagration as an intensification of blaze . In addition, blaze can give connotations of a controlled, cheerful warmth, while conflagration is more closely restricted to a widespread destructive or accidental burning: a comforting blaze roaring in the fireplace; a conflagration that almost destroyed the City of London in 1666. Blaze can, of course, be used in ways that approach the suggestions of conflagration : a blaze that took the lives of six boarders and one fireman.