fire ant Any of a genus ( Solenopsis ) of insects in the ant family, several species of which are common in southern North America. They are red or yellowish and can inflict a severe sting. The semipermanent nest consists of a loose mound with open craters for ventilation. The workers (see caste) are notorious for damaging planted grain and attacking poultry.
fire escape Means of rapid egress from a building, primarily intended for use in case of fire. Building codes define an exit as an enclosed and protected path of escape in the event of a fire, leading from an exit access through a combination of corridors, stairways, and doors to an exit dis¬ charge at an exterior court or public way. The term fire escape usually refers to open iron or steel balconies with steep stairways on the outside of buildings; often a retrofit of older buildings, these are rare in new con¬ struction. Other means of escape are by balconies leading to adjacent buildings, or through chutes, often used in hospitals.
Fire Island Elongated sandspit, off the southern shore of Long Island, New York state, U.S. The island measures 32 mi (51 km) long and 0.5 mi (1 km) at its widest, and its name refers to fires that were built there as signals to ships during the War of 1812; a lighthouse was built at its western tip in 1858. Now a popular summer resort, it is connected to Long Island by two bridges and by ferry. Fire Island (now Robert Moses) State Park was opened in 1908, and a 19,000-acre (7,700-hectare) section of the island was dedicated as a national seashore in 1964.
fire walking Religious ceremony that involves walking across hot coals, red-hot stones, or burning wood. It has been practiced in many parts of the world, including ancient Greece, India, Japan, China, Tahiti, New Zealand, Bulgaria, and Spain. The most common form of fire walking involves striding across a layer of embers spread thinly over the bottom of a shallow trench. More rarely, devotees may walk through a blazing log fire. The reasons for fire walking include purification and as an ordeal to prove innocence. Devotees believe that only those who lack faith will be burned, and many fire walkers do escape without injury.
firefly or lightning bug Any of the nocturnal luminous beetles of the family Lampyridae, consisting of about 1,900 species that inhabit tropi¬ cal and temperate regions (including the common glowworm). Adult fire¬ flies are 0.2-1 in. (5-25 mm) long and have light-producing organs on the underside of the abdomen. The soft, flattened, dark-brown or black body is often marked with orange or yellow. Some adult fireflies do not eat; others feed on pollen and nectar. Most fireflies produce short, rhythmic flashes in a pattern that is characteristic of the species and an important mating signal.
fireplace Opening made in the base of a chimney to hold an open fire. The opening is framed, usually ornamentally, by a mantel (or mantel¬ piece). A medieval development that replaced the open central health for
heating and cooking, the fireplace was sometimes large enough to accom¬ modate a sitting space called an inglenook. Early fireplaces were made of stone; later, brick came into use. In 1624 Louis Savot developed a fire¬ place in which air was drawn through passages under the hearth and dis¬ charged into the room through a grill, a design adapted in the 20th century.
fireproofing Use of fire-resistant materials in a building to prevent structural collapse and allow safe egress of occupants in case of fire. The fire-resistive ratings of various materials and constructions are established by laboratory tests and usually specified in terms of hours a material or assembly can be expected to withstand exposure to fire. Building codes require application of cementitious material or insulation to structural steel frames, fire-resistant construction (e.g., using concrete block) of enclosures around exits, flame-spread ratings of finish materials such as carpeting and wall coverings, and use of such inherently fire-resistant materials as reinforced concrete and heavy timber.
Firestone, Harvey S(amuel) (b. Dec. 20, 1868, Columbiana, Ohio, U.S.—d. Feb. 7, 1938, Miami Beach, Fla.) U.S. industrialist. Firestone established a retail tire business in 1896 and in 1900 formed a company to sell rubber carriage tires. In 1904 his business began manufacturing auto¬ mobile tires. Sales to Ford Motor Co. helped put Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. at the top of the U.S. tire industry. Firestone promoted the use of trucks for hauling freight and lobbied for the construction of vast highway sys¬ tems. He ran his company until 1932, when his son replaced him. Firestone was purchased by Bridgestone Tire Co., a Japanese firm, in 1988.
firewall Computer security system that controls the flow of data from one computer or network to another. Firewalls are mainly intended to pro¬ tect the resources of a private network from being directly accessed by a user from an external network, especially via the Internet. Users inside the private network may also be prevented from directly accessing exter¬ nal computers. To accomplish this, all communications are routed through a “proxy server” that determines whether a message or file will be allowed to enter or exit the private network.
fireweed Perennial wildflower (Epilobium angustifolium) of the evening-primrose family. Its spikes of whitish to magenta flowers, which grow up to 5 ft (1.5 m) high, can be a spectacular sight on prairies of the temperate zone. Its seeds can lie dormant for many years, awaiting the warmth necessary for germination. Fireweed is one of the first plants to appeal' after a forest or brush fire; it also rapidly covers scrub or wood¬ land areas that have been cleared by machine. It has limited use in wild gardens, where it must be carefully checked and confined.
fireworks Explosives or combustibles used for display. Of ancient Chi¬ nese origin, fireworks evidently developed out of military rockets and explosive missiles and accompanied the spread of military explosives westward to Europe in the Middle Ages. In force-and-spark compositions, potassium nitrate, sulfur, and ground charcoal are used; additional ingre¬ dients produce various types of sparks. In flame compositions, such as the stars that shoot out of rockets, potassium nitrate, salts of antimony, and sulfur may be used; for coloured fire, potassium chlorate or perchlorate is combined with a metal salt that determines the colour. Rockets are lifted by recoil from the jet of fire thrown out by the burning composition.
first cause In philosophy, the uncreated or self-created cause to which every series of causes must ultimately be traced. Used by ancient Greek thinkers, the concept was adopted by the Christian tradition and became the basis of one version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. According to this argument, every observed event is the result of a series of causes that must end in a first cause, which is God. The argu¬ ment was given its classic formulation by St. Thomas Aquinas. It was rejected by many later thinkers, including David Hume and Immanuel Kant.
First International officially International Working Men's Association Federation of workers’ groups, founded in 1864 by Brit¬ ish and French trade-union leaders. Its structure was highly centralized, based on local groups that were integrated into national federations. It was split by conflicting schools of socialist thought, including those of Karl Marx, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis-Auguste Blanqui, and Mikhail Bakunin. A clash between Marx’s centralized socialism and Bakunin’s anarchism in 1872 caused the International to split, and it was dissolved in 1876. Though it was feared at the time as a formidable power with millions of members, and several countries tried to have it outlawed, its membership was never more than 20,000 and it served mainly as a uni¬ fying force for labour in Europe.