firefall
noun
firefall is a noun meaning “A summertime event held in Yosemite National Park from 1872 to 1968, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point to the…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-I-R-E-F-A-L-L, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of firefall is firefalls.
What does firefall mean?
noun
- 1
A summertime event held in Yosemite National Park from 1872 to 1968, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point to the valley below, giving the appearance of a glowing waterfall.
- 2
The phenomenon whereby Horsetail Fall, a seasonal waterfall in Yosemite National Park, is illuminated by the sunset so that it glows orange-red.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of firefall
- firefalls plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is firefall?
Firefall appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 109,062nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does firefall come from?
From fire + fall, modelled on waterfall.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).