Fire is a good servant but a bad master. The fire insurance policy provides protection against loss or damage by fire. Fire insurance may be defined as a contract by which the insurer undertakes to indemnify the insured for any loss arising by fire. According to the Insurance Act, ‘Fire Insurance Business is a business of effecting otherwise than incidentally to some other class of insurance business, contracts of insurance against loss or incidental to fire or other occurrence customarily included among the risk insured against in fire insurance policies’. Thus, an insurance against fire is one by which the insurer, in consideration of a payment in gross at stated intervals, agrees to indemnify the insured for a certain time against damage to his property by fire. Here fire means the production of light and heat by combustion. There is no fire unless there is actual ignition. For example, sugar was spoiled by excessive heat caused due to the closing of the ventilator in the chimney; there was no actual ignition. Hence it is not fire. These policies do not cover loss by fire caused by riot, civil commotion, earthquakes, foreign enemy, etc.