Fire Vocabulary: An Advanced English Lesson Using Current Events in the News

00:00 Continuing my series on learning English with current events in the news, we’ll go into the many vocabulary words and phrases used to talk about fires and how things burn. While this lesson talks a little bit about the current events of the devastating wildfires in the western US, it will focus more on fully understanding the vocabulary words and terms used to talk about the fires so that you will better understand the news when you read it by yourself. We will also learn some idioms and phrases with some of these terms that use fire or verbs for "burning" as a metaphor.

We will learn the following vocabulary words and terms in this lesson:
00:00 Introductions/ What I teach (English fluency and accent reduction)
02:00 Quote from the New York Times: "Firefighter Dies in Blaze Sparked by Gender-Reveal Celebration. The firefighter died while battling the El Dorado Fire, which has burned through 19,000 acres since it was started by a pyrotechnic device.”

02:57 blaze(s) vs. fire
04:05 set on fire/ set ablaze
04:20 Idiom/ Phrase: "He/she went down in a blaze of glory."
05:00 spark/ sparked
06:34 Idiom/Phrase: "I felt a spark."
06:52 Idiom/Phrase: "Spark up a conversation."
07:15 gender-reveal celebration (gender-reveal party)
08:15 confetti
08:40 pyrotechnics/ pyrotechnic device
10:20 pyrotechnical experts/ pyrotechnician(s)
10:50 smoke bomb (*pictured in the thumbnail)
11:00 bath bomb
11:55 flammable
13:00 A previous fire caused by a gender-reveal party in 2017
13:40 45,000 acres
14:32 prefix: pyro
14:42 pyromaniac
15:00 arsonist(s)/ commit arson
16:00 Review the quote from the NYT again
16:30 19,000 acres
16:55 ignited/ Idioms and Phrases with the verb ignite
18:40 consumed
19:30 torch (noun) vs. torch/ torched (verb)
20:00 burn (verb) vs. torch (verb)
21:20 torched (adj.) — "The meat is torched." *I used it as a verb when I said "I torched the meat." Whoops!

Here are the three news articles where I got some of these vocabulary words:

My heart goes out to all those affected by the fires. I did my very best to speak precisely about the events for the sake of English education so those still learning English can better understand the news of today.

Disclaimer: I am not a fire expert. This is not meant to give any advice about fire safety or fire laws in the US or anywhere else. This video is for English education only.

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