It is unseen and ungraspable, but it is felt. Its power as wind is extraordinary. Winds bring rain and drought, destroy on their own, and generate a certain kind of chaos. Air shows the sacredness of breath, a life principle, and suggests spirit. Fire suggests resurrection, which involves a transformation of form without dissolution or the slow process of decay.
Flame is a process, a chemical reaction.
Life to ash, spread on fields, yields increased life. Water in symbolic terms, suggests the sum of all virtualities and possibilities. In mythology the waters are said to have existed before earth. Waters abolish form through dissolution and give rise to new forms through precipitation. Having said all this I must caution against believing that the response of all human minds to nature is uniform, especially at the level of specific interpretation.