The water comes from the earth last, covering the fire. His Philosophy - Love and Strife Empedocles' four elements were, at the beginning of the world all mixed in unity. Everything was made up of combinations of the 4 elements - bone for example was 3 parts fire and 2 parts earth. He suggests that humans came about when limbs and organs were formed and joined at random to make monsters - some that survived, those that could not were changed, until humans were formed. Eventually love will again gain ascendancy and the process will reverse - and then start again etc.
Nothing is permanent except for the one whole made of the elements.
He is believed to have shown that air is something, by shoving a bucket in the sea, upturned - and demonstrating that it does not get wet inside. Another version of this has him using a water clock, and yet another that you wet the vessel only when the air comes out. Or the story of the village of Selinus that was afflicted with a plague, so Empedocles saved them by diverting two streams into their river to purify it. This story is rather similar to one of Hercules' tasks, and may well be a rewrite of this legend. Empedocles was then supposed to have manifested himself to the villagers, who worshipped him - he then threw himself into Etna to confirm their views on him.