Fire (artscene group)

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Fire

Country	United States
Years active	1994–1998
Category	artscene

Fire, later known as Fire Graphics, was an underground computer artscene group that released ANSI, ASCII, and high resolution artwork from 1994 to 1998.

[edit] History

Fire "hirez" artwork.

Fire was founded in July 1994 by ANSI artists Donut Hole and Vendetta as a parody of iCE, one of the top art groups of the time. From the second pack onward, the group was ostensibly led by Halaster, who gradually elevated Fire by recruiting talented artists from regional art groups, and by becoming a competent ANSI artist himself. After releasing monthly collections of their work, Fire planned a merger with Canadian artscene group Mistigris, in March of 1995. The merger was unsuccessful and Fire collapsed shortly thereafter when Halaster quit the group to join ACiD.

In August of 1995, Halaster quit ACiD and re-formed Fire. After its rebirth, Fire became a popular and critically successful group, releasing artwork and applications such as the DOS based ANSI editor, Pyrodraw. At various points in time, Fire was home to some of the most respected ANSI artists in the scene, including Iodine, Eerie and Prisoner #1.

Through most of its history, Fire was headquartered at The Regency BBS, located in Atlanta's 404 area code. The Regency was one of the only dial-up BBSs that transitioned to IP technology via use of the telnet protocol. This transition was short-lived and only marginally successful, but allowed Fire to retain its headquarters after most BBSs had closed. The Regency's geographic location contributed to the early history of the group, as most of its initial artistic roster hailed from Atlanta.

Not unlike the relationship between ACiD Productions and Remorse ASCII, Fire had a separate ASCII sub-group called Fire ASCII. Fire also maintained a separate music/tracking entity called Radiance.

In February 1997, Halaster stepped down from his leadership position and hirez artist, God Among Lice ran the group until the final pack in September of 1998.