A red, orange, and yellow flickering flame, as produced when something is on fire.

Most commonly used figuratively to express that something is impressive, exciting, or of exceptional quality, overlapping with slang terms such as fire (“outstanding”), lit (“exciting” or “excellent”), and hot (“attractive” or “trending”).

Also used literally to represent flames, such as a campfire or wildfire, as well as heat or temperature, including that produced by spicy foods or direct sunlight.

Snapchat displays 🔥 Fire next to two users who are on an active snapstreak, aka. they have been messaging for more than three consecutive days. A number alongside the emoji tracks how many days the streak has lasted.

This emoji predates the inclusion and standardization of emojis within Unicode. It was first added to early Japanese emoji keyboards by Softbank in 1999.

Fire was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.