FIRE

Every third week, I am required by my newspaper instructor, Mr. Jeffrey Kocur, to write an opinion editorial (op/ed). This time around I thought I would write about something that no one had written about before so I chose the topic of fire.

The origins of fire have been widely debated throughout history but it is mostly agreed upon that there was first evidence of controlled use of fire by anatomically modern humans approximately 125,000 years ago. I’d say this was a great discovery by our forefathers.

Fire is necessary for basic survival and humans use it to cook and keep warm. Some people may perhaps make the argument that they don’t use fire to keep warm anymore but I would ask them this question: if fire had never been discovered, do you really believe that humans would have figured out an alternative heat source? I do not believe we would’ve.

There have been some very smart humans over the years, like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and of course Chuck Norris, but I still do not believe that if our forefathers, the cavemen, discovered, and learned how to control fire, we would not be here today.

I first started dabbling in the thought pool of fire (the warm kind no less), when I viewed an episode of Spongebob called Ugh from season three. Spongegar, Patar and Squog, the prehistoric ancestors of Spongebob, Patrick and Squidward begin to play with a hollow log, trying to blow a bubble when a thunderstorm occurs. A lightning bolt strikes the log, setting it on fire. The three characters find out that fire can be used to cook various food items and also to keep them warm.

This episode got me thinking about the origins of fire and what life would be like if our ancestors never discovered it and how to control it. I firmly believe that if fire hadn’t been discovered, human life would be very different. Humans may still be hunter-gatherers because if we never discovered fire, we wouldn’t know about cooked food and wouldn’t have ever received enough nutrients for our brains to grow.

These are just one man, myself’s, thoughts about the origins of fire so who knows if I’m right or if all this even matters. If you were going to take away three things from this article I would hope you took away that Spongebob can be very informational, humans have evolved overtime and fire is indeed a very, very, very warm thing.