Fire conjured through magic will often have properties that normal fire doesn't. A common variation is the ability to burn without fuel — almost all magic fire can do that. Otherwise, how could you do stupidly dangerous things like fling around mid-air fireballs?
Other possible properties of magical fire include, but are not limited to:
- Cold Flames (The fire doesn't burn)
- Fire Purifies (Not limited to magic fire, but common to it)
- Hellfire (The magic is infernal in nature)
- Hitodama Light (If associated with spirits)
- Sacred Flames (When the fire's holiness gives it its magical properties)
- Technicolor Fire (Part of the magic is that it comes in different colors from most regular fires)
- Unquenchable Fire (The fire can't be extinguished)
Those who have the power to control fire often use Magic Fire if it's magic-based. Faux Flame is magic or another type of illusion that just happens to look like fire. Not to be confused with Magic Misfire. The fires generated by The Phoenix often have magical properties, as does the fire generated by dragons. These fires can often be used as a Fantastic Light Source. The Flame of Life may just happen to be a magical fire. Greek Fire isn't magical, but still has (very nasty) unusual properties.
To be clear, this trope details fire with magical properties, not just otherwise mundane fire conjured through magic.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Piyomon's green "Magical Fire" attack in Digimon Adventure. Flavor text reveals that it literally is a magical fire — it's a psychic attack where the creature hit only feels the sensation of being burned but isn't actually harmed physically.
- Fairy Tail:
- Totomaru, one of Phantom Lord's Element Four, specializes in Rainbow Fire magic. This makes him able to make and manipulate different kinds of magical fire based on color. Natsu, who fought him at one point and who literally eats fire to recharge/enhance his fire-breathing dragon powers, said one color tasted cool and another smelled like crap.
- Macao Conbolt from the Fairy Tail guild uses a kind of fire magic known as Purple Flare, which, as its name says, produces purple flames.
- Signum of Lyrical Nanoha specializes in fire magic, which like all magic can be made non-lethal. Its magical nature also means that it can be dispelled by Anti-Magic, as shown in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force.
- The legendary Amaterasu jutsu from Naruto summons a black flame that can burn anything and cannot be extinguished for seven days and seven nights.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Negi Springfield in his Magia Erebia Armationem of Incendium Gehennae ("Hell's Conflagration"), a high-level fire- and darkness-based spell, glows with black flames; they apparently cause Mana Drain.
- One Piece: Marco the Phoenix can turn into a phoenix with special blue flames that don't burn but allows him to heal himself and others, albeit in the case of the latter it's to a lesser extent.
- Gamma Akutabi from Zombiepowder. has the Black Flames of Bloodlust, which can be touched and used as a shield or chain.
Comic Books
- The DCU:
- Cobalt Blue, an enemy of The Flash, has mastered a form of sorcery that allows him to create magical blue fire. He can do a wide variety of tricks with his blue flames, such as stealing speed from the Flashes, making fiery, blue constructs such as a sword, teleporting himself, and more. Wally West has noted that when Cobalt Blue blasts him with his blue fire to steal his speed, it feels cold instead of hot (though Cobalt Blue can also use his fire to burn things if he wants).
- Unlike the general glow of the more well known Green Lantern Corps, the mystical energy of Alan Scott's Green Lantern Ring is often depicted as vivid green flames when undirected. This fits the name of its source, the Starheart.
- Drakul from JLA: A League of One has a special green fire that forcibly transforms gnomes into Drakugnome minions.
- Fire from the Justice League can control mystical green fire.
- X-Men: The flames generated by the Phoenix Force are capable of sustaining themselves in outer space. They're also hotter than the stars.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: There's fires that don't seem to use fuel that are used for lighting when electricity would be bad, such as when it's a water-based area like a bath / pool.
- Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami: One of the story's many defiances of nuclear physics is that at one point, a tanker carrying "nuclears" gets destroyed in a car chase, creating an explosion made up of what the narration straight-up calls magic fire. The main property of this magic fire is that it can turn around corners.
Film — Animation
- In Frozen II, the fire spirit's fire is purplish-pinkish as a result of its magic.
- Promare: The Burnish mutants create lurid Technicolor Fire that behaves like an Imagination-Based Superpower: besides burning things, they can also shape the fire into physical weapons, armor, and vehicles.
Film — Live-Action
- In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Protego Diabolica is an assumed variation of the Shielding Charm cast by Grindelwald that creates black flames that burns the caster's enemies while leaving their allies unharmed.
- In She (1965), the moon shining into a special underground chamber in the lost city creates a magical blue fire that turns mortal humans into immortals and causes people who're already immortal to instantly age to death.
Literature
- The Afterward: Ladros casts blue fire which especially affects creatures who the Old God controls. While fighting a battle later he creates a wall of fire as well, and conjures it to kill the Old God's followers too in the Holy City as they're attacking.
- The Brothers Cabal: Members of the Dee Society all carry vials of alchemical powder for Precautionary Corpse Disposal. It combusts in heatless gold fire that can incinerate a dead body in seconds.
- The Daevabad Trilogy: Rumi fire is a Greek Fire-like substance that clings to flesh, can't be extinguished by water, and is magically enhanced to overcome the fire immunity of djinn.
- The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden frequently throws around mundane, if magically-conjured and -sustained, fire. However, after bonding with the Genius Loci of Demonreach, his flames are green. There are some Fae immune to magically-powered fire, but if you only used magic to start a fire, such as lighting a Sternonote , then chucked that....
- Earth's Scariest Monsters!: At the end of "In Deep," the witch Diana uses her magic to conjure a mystical fire for her and her friends to sit around as they relax on the beach. Since Diana's Weak to Fire, she avoids making the flames too hot or intense.
- In Paula Volsky's Gaslamp Fantasy novel The Grand Ellipse, a critical McGuffin of the plot is the creation (by the court wizard to a reclusive and eccentric king) of an elemental force called Sentient Fire, which is self-aware, responds to its creator's will, and includes the aspects of Cold Flames (it can leave things unburnt if its maker tells it to), Technicolor Fire (it's bright green), and Unquenchable Fire (nothing is depicted as able to put it out).
- Harry Potter:
- Flames enchanted with the Flame-Freezing Charm don't burn and will instead give off a pleasant sensation such as a warm summer breeze or light tickling.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:
- Hermione thrice uses the "Bluebell Flames" spell which creates bright blue, waterproof flames that can heat without burning — in the first case Hermione, Harry, and Ron warm themselves with a jam jar full of such fire. However, apparently the spell will burn certain materials like clothing and plants, which is shown in the other two appearances.
- Snape's test to reach the titular stone involves a magical flame that can only be passed if someone drinks a special potion, as well as another flame requiring a different potion that blocks the way back.
- Fires created with Floo powder, as first introduced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, are emerald green and harmless, and are used either to travel between fireplaces or to communicate between them by sticking one's head alone into the fire.
- The titular item in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire contains blue flames, which turn bright red when a champion is chosen.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:
- Hagrid delivers a branch of Gubraithian Fire, which is enchanted to burn for evermore, as a gift to the leader of the giants.
- Antonin Dolohov uses a curse that forms purple flames that are implied to cause internal injury, as Hermoine is knocked unconscious and is on a regimen of numerous healing potions for a while afterwards, despite lacking any outward physical injuries.
- Fiendfyre, seen in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is a living flame that seeks targets and grows rapidly as it consumes. It is very difficult to control. As it hunts, it takes the shape of various magical creatures. It is one of the very few things that can destroy a horcrux.
- The Language of Thorns: In "When Water Sang Fire", Ulla uses dark magic to create a flame that can burn underwater.
- The Legends of Ethshar: The Tower of Flame is a column of magical fire that's burned for centuries. It originated when a wizard was using a simple spell to light his camp fire, and sneezed at the wrong moment.
- Legends of Ithyria: Lyris saves Shasta and Talon when they're completely surrounded by enemy soldiers through hurling blue fire which consumes them. She's astonished, having had no idea she could do that at all. It turns out to be celestial fire, a special rare gift from her goddess. The other priestesses can also use it before too long, which soon turns the tide in the fighting.
- A Master of Djinn: Agent Fatma of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities is familiar with all kinds of magical fire, but she is initially stumped by a murder scene where the victims burned alive but their clothes were untouched. It turns out to be the fire of an ifrit.
- The Oleander Sword: Mothers' fire moves like a living thing, jumping from one target to the next after raining down out of the sky. It can be set on swords and arrows, moving from there to human targets.
- The Purifying Fire has a white, cool fire that is actually a source of pure White Mana.
- The Scholomance: "Mortal flame" is a blue-hot fire that consumes anything containing Mana, making it especially deadly to mals and wizards. It can burn through any protective spell except a firebreak of more mortal flame.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Wildfire is green in color and cannot be extinguished until there is nothing left for it to burn on. And seeing how it can burn on pretty much anything, it is usually treated as a Dangerous Forbidden Technique. While its exact makeup is a closely guarded secret, dragons are believed to be involved in its creation, as wildfire created after their extinction isn't quite as potent. It's also implied that wildfire might not actually be true magic and is made through mundane if secret means, but that's what the Alchemist Guild tells people to keep them from trying to figure it out for themselves.
- Firemages can create and control flames, with one trick being to create a ladder of fire for them to climb up without getting burned.
- Stardust: The fires created by witches will burn with different colors than normal due to their magic.
- Sword of Truth: Wizard's Fire is a standard ability of wizards that conjures a flame that is extra virulent, seeking targets and resisting extinguishment. An upgrade is Wizard's Life Fire, which uses the wizard's life force, killing him in order to create an enhanced burst of flame.
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of The Worst Witch, some students try to make a magic fire but use too many fireflies and create a normal fire instead.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- In Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Halfling clan strongholds each have a Crucible of Blackflame. Blackflame is a strange reverse fire that "burns" ashes and returns them to their original form.
- In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, "fire" and "magic fire" were separate damage types and while most creatures would have the same degree of resistance to both, this was not a universal rule. For example a succubus had immunity to fire damage but only 50% resistance to magical fire damage. A few monsters had immunity to magical fire damage but no resistance to nonmagical fire at all.
- Blackfire is an ink-black necromantic flame that directly consumes Life Energy (i.e., the victim's Constitution score). It's unquenchable by normal means, and creatures killed by it are difficult or impossible to resurrect.
- In GURPS: Magic, you can create "Essential Flame" which will actually burn water elementals. A pyromaniac mage actually has a lot of fun options, besides the ever-popular "Explosive Fireball" there is "Burning Death" which incinerates the target from the inside out even if they're magically protected from fire.
- Mage: The Awakening:
- Salamanders from Astral Space can create a Platonic ideal of fire in the physical world. Items forged in the fire are similarly perfected, drastically reducing the cost to imbue them with spells.
- Similarly to the seven metals (gold, silver, mercury, copper, tin, lead and iron) that can be Perfected by moving them in and out of Twilight, fire can also be Perfected. Perfected Fire is pure white, burns even hotter and quicker than regular fire, and deals horrendous damage to anything it touches. It can also serve as a substitute for specific sorts of fire — if a spirit's Bane is "fire from a torch burning myrrh", or an artefact requires being bathed in dragon fire to be destroyed, Perfected fire does the trick.
- Magic: The Gathering:
- The card Ghostfire
is flavored as transparent (and therefore invisible) fire (and being mechanically colorless, it can bypass magic that would protect against normal fire).
- Eldraine is a rare plane where pyromancy is predominantly associated with White mana. The knights of Ardenvale pass through a circle of white flames similar to the purifying fire, burning away the impure but letting the righteous pass, while several of their order weaponise white and silver flames.
- The card Ghostfire
- Princess: The Hopeful:
- The Court of Swords is associated with the element of fire, and many of its Charms create various kinds of magic flames with unusual properties. Examples include a simple charm that makes fire not consume its fuel or damage objects (flames so enchanted can actually be handled and stored in a container like a liquid), a charm that creates a flame out of someone's love for another which can later be used to temporarily return the strength of that love to what it was when the flame was lit, and a charm which sets someone on fire with flames that not only do no harm but will literally burn sickness out of the target.
- The Court of Storms has the charm Purgation, which creates a green flame that will burn anything Tainted by the Darkness (even water, metal, or asbestos) like a normal fire burns dry straw. Against things not Tainted, it burns as any other fire would.
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay:
- The Lore of Light has a spell to enchant a fire so that everyone within its light automatically passes all Toughness tests to resist disease. The fire otherwise behaves normally and retains its magic as long as it's lit.
- The Lore of Fire can render a small fire inextinguishable for up to a year, during which time it consumes no fuel but still burns. It also has a spell to render creatures Immune to Fire, which can only be overcome by fire created by similarly powerful magic.
Video Games
- In Dragon Cave, fire is one of the magical elements, and breeds with an affinity to that element sometimes produce fire via magic or can otherwise manipulate fire that has some magical aspect. A few have Cold Fire; several have Technicolor Fire. In one case where the fire is explicitly stated to be magical, the Desipis breed can breathe fire that absorbs magic and converts it to crystallized form.
- Elden Ring:
- The Giants' Flame, also called the flame of ruin, is sourced from a "fell god" worshiped by the Fire Giants and burns so fiercely not even the immortal Erdtree is immune to it. The Erdtree's worshipers therefore exterminated the Fire Giants early in their history — but the flame itself, inextinguishable, continued to smolder in the Forge of the Giants, requiring an order of monks to be formed to guard it, and people continued to be struck by (heretical) prophetic visions of the Erdtree burning long afterwards.
- The Flame of Frenzy, also known as the flame of chaos, is a Mystical Plague that emerges in people who cross the Despair Event Horizon so badly that yellow fire starts spilling out of their eyes out of sheer despair and misanthropy. The Frenzied Flame burns hot enough to melt even souls, and it's the foundation of a Scary Amoral Religion that wants to burn the world to ash so that nothing has to suffer any more.
- The Godskin cultists wield black flame magic, which harnessed the power of the rune of Destined Death to kill the immortal. However, after the Godskins were defeated and Destined Death was sealed away, the black flame is no longer quite that potent.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: With the Dragonborn Fire ability introduced in Dragonborn, enemies killed with the Fire Breath shout will have Flame Wyrms created from their corpses.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Blue Fire is a magical fire that can be used to melt Red Ice and also destroy bombable walls.
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games have the villains lighting up the three Flames of Sorrow, Destruction, and Despair in order to revive Ganon.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Sheikah technology is often powered through Blue Flames that don't burn out.
- Pokémon:
- The move Mystical Fire (literally "Magical Flame" in the original Japanese) is a Fire-type attack that lowers the target's Special Attack by one stage on top of dealing damage. Originally, it was the Signature Move of the witch-like Delphox; since its debut, it's become learnable (by level-up and TM) by a number of Psychic, Fairy, and Ghost-types (all of whom tend to be associated with mysticism).
- The purple flames of Litwick and its evolutions don't burn the body (Unless they happen to be using a Fire-type attack), but do burn spirits and life force, which also serve as the fuel for their flames.
- The cursed flames on Alolan Marowak's bone are said to be formed from their mother's spirit, cause mental and physical pain that will never fade, and will always burn no matter the amount of water used on them.
- Dhalsim's magical Yoga Fire in Street Fighter was originally stated to be the result of his curry diet, but was later retconned into being a gift from the Hindu god of fire Agni.
- Twisted-Wonderland: Rollo Flamme's unique magic encases his entire body in flames fueled by others' negative emotions such as anger and fear.
- A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: Corona Lucis has a section that involves dodging flamethrowers, but being touched by the flames results in being teleported away to attempt the puzzle again instead of being hurt.
- Wildermyth:
- Cvawn the Summerking, the last living true dragon, claims that his flame breath is hot enough to set the heroes' ghosts aflame. The Drauven Emperor is also said to "wield the power of stars", which he and his Redcloaks utilize by hurling massive fireballs, dozens of meters in diameter.
- Human Mystics have their own tricks. Any Mystic can interfuse with and manipulate existing fires set through other means, while those who take the Ignite ability gain the ability to create new blazes, which can in turn be flung around with Fireleash.
- The Stories of Fire tiding can see a character be enthralled by a mystical fire which gives off no heat (to the chosen hero; their allies will beg the hero to step away from the blazing inferno before they get hurt). A hero that embraces the flame becomes a Flamesoul, their limbs slowly turning into lashes of fire, gaining the ability to shoot gouts of it from their hands.
- The first god you aid in Wildmender is Naia, the Deity of Rivers and Oaks, and the Hearthmother. She purifies the Flame Talisman for you, though is reluctant to release its terrifying power back into the world as the Wraiths haunting the desert used it to wreak havoc over the world. The talisman enables you to perform fire attacks that, while lacking the impact of your Magic Mirror's light spells, deal absolutely devastating damage. It can also be used to purify stagnant pools of water.
Visual Novels
- What a Legend!: A certain kind of magical fire is one of the few things that can destroy a demonic contract. Abu Gadu conjures some up when bargaining to destroy one contract in exchange for something else — this costs him, because you end up setting all his contracts on fire, destroying his power.
Web Animation
- The Frollo Show has BLEEMO, a living fire that serves as Frollo's alarm clock, fireplace, TV, and computer and is even referred to in his introduction as being a "Magic Fire".
- Mystery Skulls Animated: Lewis, a ghost with fire powers, summons and uses bright pink supernatural fire, which also happens to fit neatly into his Color Motif.
- RWBY: Whenever one of the Maidens taps into their powers, it is represented by their Aura forming flames around their eyes that conform to the colour of their Aura. Amber and Cinder have natural-looking eye-fire because of their orange-gold Auras; the Spring Maiden's eye-fire is an unnatural red hue and Fria's is an icy blue. Penny's eye-fire is emerald green and Winter's is icy-blue.
Webcomics
- Gunnerkrigg Court: Antimony, as the descendant of a fire elemental, can use her Blinker Stone to make fire that gives off warmth without spreading and is undetectable to Laser Cows, who would otherwise put it out. She later learns to use fire without the stone and to make fire that more or less only burns what she wants it to burn.
Websites
- SCP Foundation: SCP-310 is an "anomalous" candle that can ignite any flammable or semi-flammable material with an inextinguishable flame — it burns at a normal rate, unstoppably, until all available fuel is consumed. The containment area has surgical tools and power saws in case it touches anyone.
Western Animation
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Granamyr, Oldest and Wisest of Dragons, draws his immense magical power from his firepit. Notably the fire in the pit cannot simply be put out to depower him, an enemy has to use a shard of infinite ice to do so. Likewise starting it up again requires a piece of first fire to do so, though apparently it can be stoked with normal wood like any other flame.
- In The Legend of Korra, a Fire Sage uses a firebending technique akin to healing, after Korra has been rendered amnesiac and weak by a dark spirit possession in order to figure out what's wrong with her via examining her chi with a white and gold flame.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Spike has the ability to send letters to Princess Celestia by burning them with his green fire breath, after which they reform in front of her. When she sends a letter back through him, he burps green flames that form into the letter.
- The Fire of Friendship is a type of magic fire used to defeat Windigoes (ice monsters that feed on resentment).
- Queen Chrysalis' magic is often associated with green fire.