Section III
Fire
Fire – our fourth element – is incredibly and obviously useful. Its affective
visibility means that it is etched in memory and is ever-present – sparking
the combustion engine, ringing the gas burner, stoking the campfire, and
smouldering the cigarette. In heating, cooking, communing, forging, clearing, recreating, and regenerating, fire has been co-constitutive to human
evolution and existence.
Fire is the flicking, flaring, travelling site of combustion and fuses
together solid and gas in its being and becoming. In this dynamic, ofttimes
unpredictable melding of air and earth, this element can be destructive. Its
immense, hot-headed power conjures imaginings of purgatory and hell; of
incessant burning and torment. Fire’s ever-ready potential to bring forth
terror and annihilation means that it manifests careful practices of domestication, suppression or protection within and around human settlements
and in the home.
Fire insurance was one of the earliest formal insurances. It was pioneered
in Britain following the 1666 Great Fire of London, financed by private
funds – largely from merchants and manufacturers, and closely linked to
the development and spread of marine insurance (Pearson 2012). In the
nineteenth century British fire insurers lead the establishment of a global
network of insurance and reinsurance (Pearson 2012) and in the United
Kingdom, growing populations, increasing property values and new suburbs saw a steady rise in fire insurance premiums collected from 1 million
in 1850 to 10 million by World War One. Taking out insurance to protect
against losses caused by fire remains a steadfast element of the insurance
portfolio.
Yet, despite its constitution through actuarialism, like other forms of
insurance, contemporary fire-related products like house and contents
insurance can appear far from certain. Booth and Harwood (2016, p. 50)
describe how for residents in areas at high risk of wildfire, insurance is
‘momentary rather than monetary.’ Exceeding the financial, calculative logics of insurers, householder insurantial logics flicker in and out of focus,
taking on different forms at different times and places within the complexities of everyday life (Booth 2021).
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-10
Fire
Fire – our fourth element – is incredibly and obviously useful. Its affective
visibility means that it is etched in memory and is ever-present – sparking
the combustion engine, ringing the gas burner, stoking the campfire, and
smouldering the cigarette. In heating, cooking, communing, forging, clearing, recreating, and regenerating, fire has been co-constitutive to human
evolution and existence.
Fire is the flicking, flaring, travelling site of combustion and fuses
together solid and gas in its being and becoming. In this dynamic, ofttimes
unpredictable melding of air and earth, this element can be destructive. Its
immense, hot-headed power conjures imaginings of purgatory and hell; of
incessant burning and torment. Fire’s ever-ready potential to bring forth
terror and annihilation means that it manifests careful practices of domestication, suppression or protection within and around human settlements
and in the home.
Fire insurance was one of the earliest formal insurances. It was pioneered
in Britain following the 1666 Great Fire of London, financed by private
funds – largely from merchants and manufacturers, and closely linked to
the development and spread of marine insurance (Pearson 2012). In the
nineteenth century British fire insurers lead the establishment of a global
network of insurance and reinsurance (Pearson 2012) and in the United
Kingdom, growing populations, increasing property values and new suburbs saw a steady rise in fire insurance premiums collected from 1 million
in 1850 to 10 million by World War One. Taking out insurance to protect
against losses caused by fire remains a steadfast element of the insurance
portfolio.
Yet, despite its constitution through actuarialism, like other forms of
insurance, contemporary fire-related products like house and contents
insurance can appear far from certain. Booth and Harwood (2016, p. 50)
describe how for residents in areas at high risk of wildfire, insurance is
‘momentary rather than monetary.’ Exceeding the financial, calculative logics of insurers, householder insurantial logics flicker in and out of focus,
taking on different forms at different times and places within the complexities of everyday life (Booth 2021).
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-10