I’m scared of fire.  I feel this is a perfectly normal fear, or at the very least a healthy one.  I have other fears/phobias which are questionable in regard to their normality but more of that another time.  At my parents’ home they have a wood burning fire and quite often I’ve had cause to light and then keep it going.  Mum seems to shows no fear with either of these two things, to the extent where I sometimes question if she could do with a dose of my worry.  I’ve found my own way around the first issue of lighting it by using extra long matches, extending the distance between myself and the flame thus easing my worries.  The second issue is quite hard to get around as gently throwing the log onto the flames runs the risk of it falling off and out of the fire if you don’t close the door soon enough, and if I have to place it in the fire I’m convinced I’m going to burn myself.  Which I’ve ended up doing, albeit on the door of the fire rather than from the flames.

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