fires

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of fire.

   Crews monitored the spreading fires from a watchtower above the valley.

   Lightning sparked a dozen fires across the forest in a single afternoon.

   Note

   Only the countable kinds of fire take a plural: separate blazes, campfires and hearth fires, and, in British use, the electric heaters also called fires. Fire as the burning reaction itself, or as one of the classical elements, stays singular. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb. After a determiner or a number (the fires, a dozen fires), it is always the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of fire.

   The factory fires its furnaces before dawn to meet the morning quota.

   Whenever profits fall, the company fires staff without much warning.

   Note

   Every meaning of the verb behind this form takes a direct object, so a sentence using it names what is acted on: she fires a pistol, the potter fires the clay, the board fires its manager. That object is the quickest guide to which meaning is intended. It also separates the verb from the plural noun, which follows the or a number instead of a singular subject.

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