fire

1. To remove an employee from their job, typically for reasons such as poor work quality or disagreeable behavior. "The manager had to fire his secretary after she failed to show up for work for an entire week." When someone is removed from their job for reasons unrelated to the employee (the company must cut positions in order to save money, for example), it is typically called a layoff.

2. A combustion reaction that results in heat and flames; sometimes purposefully and beneficially (for cooking purposes, or for heating purposes), but sometimes unintentionally (a spark which starts a wildfire, or burns down a house).