nothing gives me more comfort or more anxiety than fire

Nothing quite draws your attention like an open fire…

Fire: nothing gives me more comfort or more anxiety than fire.
…
The fireplace has been subsumed by the TV, pushed out of the nest as by a cuckoo. People now comtemplate the TV, not the fire.
A fire only really comes into its own when it is genuinely needed – when the weather is so cold that you come in shivering, preferably red of nose, blue of cheek and perhaps white of toenail.
…
Life revolved around the fire and the kitchen range, and the coal cellar or woodshed. Think what we miss when we press buttons or flick switches or adjust thermostats – a whole world of mystery and delight.

Fire is by no means silent; it crackles wheezes, whistles.

Roger Deakin in Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, page 12.