Fire Fire was energy produced by rapid oxidation . A splinter of Scaroth showed mankind how to make fire . ( TV : " City of Death " ) By roughly 100 , 000 BC , fire had become a precious commodity , as relatively few humans knew how to recreate it once it was snuffed out ; in some tribes , this knowledge was held only by a select few . The First Doctor and his companion s Ian Chesterton , Barbara Wright and Susan Foreman encountered a tribe looking for this knowledge . Ian ultimately showed Za , a tribal leader whose predecessor was unable to give him the secret before dying , how to make fire . ( TV : " An Unearthly Child " ) On one planet , the Fourth Doctor taught the Meerag s how to make fire and use it against the giant mutant s that were plaguing them . ( COMIC : " The Mutants " ) According to Greek mythology , Prometheus stole fire from heaven and gave it to the first men . When the Fourth Doctor met Prometheus and recounted this story , the Olympian corrected him , saying that he actually stole the spark of life . ( COMIC : " The Life Bringer " ) The Tenth Doctor once commented that fire was " so fun to look at ! But bad for the skin ! " ( COMIC : " Ground Control " ) The Twelfth Doctor claimed to know of a race made of sentient gas who threw fireballs as a " friendly wave " . ( TV : " Flatline " ) Incidents involving fire . The First Doctor accidentally inspired Nero to start the Great Fire of Rome in 64 . ( TV : " Inferno " ) The Third Doctor saw an alternate Earth consumed by fire . ( TV : " Inferno " ) This memory was used against him by the Keller Machine . ( TV : " The Mind of Evil " ) Murray Stevens set fire to the computer room of the complex where the Gemini Plan was being carried out in an attempt to sabotage the project ; however , the fire was quickly extinguished . ( COMIC : " Gemini Plan " ) Ky used fire to ward off Solonian mutants . ( TV : " The Mutants " ) During the Fourth Doctor ' s sacrifice by the Deon s , fire was used to burn the ropes holding a rock above him . ( TV : " Meglos " ) In Victorian era London , Leela savagely attacked the Linkton s ' teleportation device . It sparked and started a fire which went on to melt the Linktons present , as they were mostly made of wax . ( PROSE : " The Living Wax " ) The Great Fire of London started when a Terileptil weapon overloaded in a building on Pudding Lane in London in September 1666 . Much of the city was burnt , but it proved helpful in clearing the bubonic plague from the city . ( TV : " The Visitation " ) In Alaska in 1994 , the Fifth Doctor set fire to Shaun Brett ' s memorial to his father to kill the Permian s inside . ( AUDIO : " The Land of the Dead " ) The Tenth Doctor used a burning stick to light a funeral pyre for . ( TV : " Last of the Time Lords " ) In 2011 , when the Teselecta disguised as the Eleventh Doctor was shot by River Song in order to fake the Doctor ' s death , it appeared to fall dead . A funeral pyre was lit for it by Amy Pond , Rory Williams and a future version of River , using gasoline provided by Canton Everett Delaware III . The Doctor later claimed that his doppelganger was " barely singed " by the pyre . ( TV : " The Impossible Astronaut " , " The Wedding of River Song " ) Jack Harkness once encountered a firebird , a creature literally made out of fire . ( TV : " Immortal Sins " ) While possessed by the Beast , Toby Zed breathed fire . ( TV : " The Satan Pit " ) In a house in 1889 , Sarah Jane Smith and Emily Morris discovered an echo from the future showing two children suffocating in a house fire . Using the chronosteel key , Emily saved the children . ( TV : " Lost in Time " ) In 1911 , the destruction of Sutekh in the time tunnel set the priory on the future site of UNIT HQ on fire , burning it to the ground . ( TV : " Pyramids of Mars " ) Rhoda Hoffman ' s parents were killed in a fire when she was a baby . ( COMIC : " The Broken Man " ) When the Ninth Doctor blew up Henrik ' s , the explosion set fire to the store on 5 March 2005 . ( TV : " Rose " ) During the Miracle in 2011 , human s marked category 1 and category 0 were sent to overflow camp s to be incinerated . ( TV : " The Categories of Life " , " End of the Road " ) While attempting to maintain a hold on the fan controls for Platform One , Jabe burnt to death . ( TV : " The End of the World " ) Pyrovile s could breathe fire . One such Pyrovile disintegrated the human servant Rombus with its breath . ( TV : " The Fires of Pompeii " ) In the early 21st century , an emergency services officer tried burning the tree s around Green Park tube station in London . The trees failed to catch fire as , according to the Twelfth Doctor , the trees " with [ held ] the oxygen " and " smother [ ed ] the fire " . ( TV : " In the Forest of the Night " )