FIRE

                           There have been cases of pyrokinesis - people who can conduct fire

We begin in Bosham, England, which is about 70 miles south west of London, and at what appears to be a stately home. An old man says goodbye to his young wife and is about to get into the car when all of a sudden he bursts into flames and dies.....

We then move on to Washington DC, and Mulder meeting an old flame, Phoebe Green, with whom he attended University in England. She now works at Scotland yard and is investigating a few strange killings - summing it up by telling the agents that some clever bloke has been killing aristocrats by burning them alive - and to add to the complexity of the cases there is no evidence left at the crime scene other than a sprinkling of magnesium. Mulder, who tells us that he has always had a fear of fire, is fascinated and agrees to help Phoebe investigate the killings. He immediately explores the possibilities of spontaneous combustion and pyrokinesis, however Scully retorts that we may burn but we don't conduct that well - there is always some extraneous fuel involved such as gasoline. Phoebe informs the agents that one target is Sir Malcolm Marsden, and that he and his family have come to Cape Cod in a bed to get away from this madman. However it is their belief that the killer will follow him....

Meanwhile in Cape Cod we see Marsden, his wife and two young sons enter there home - however they are greeted by a caretaker named Bob who looks rather menacing. He is made more sinister by the fact that the family dog digs up the garden and a human hand is uncovered...with Bob kicking the dog and remarking that he is the caretaker now....Bob then meets the driver for the family, who is also the body guard, and hatches a plan to dispatch him. Bob goes into the town and we witness his apparent powers when he sets fire to a bar simply by setting himself on fire....and a female survivor describes the events to Mulder and Scully when they arrive at the hospital.

Sculy makes the observation from photographic evidence that the victims were all burned in the presence of family members, and that the arsonist had intimate access to his victims. She profiles the killer to be most likely less than 25 years of age, often acting out of impulse and satisfying sexual urges or insecurities with destructive behaviour, which compensates for social inequalities and maladaptiveness.

Meanwhile Bob is asked to take on the role of driver for the family after the original driver goes missing - and the family have a party to attend in Boston. Scully meanwhile pulls together immigration data hoping to learn the identity of the killer, and after gaining information she meets Mulder at the Boston party. She asks Phoebe if the driver had been checked out, to which she responds that he had and that he was also the family bodyguard - not knowing that Bob had taken his place. Scully explains that in assessing the immigration records she had come across over 200 names of people who had entered the country on the set date - with only one name duplicated - Cecil Lively. She stated that Lively was a model citizen - until he died in 1971. She adds that Lively is the person they are looking for before a fire is started at the Boston party, trapping Marsdens children, who are eventually rescued.

Back at the Marsden residence Scully recognises the driver from the e fit she had received earlier, and when they find the decomposing body of the original driver the penny drops. A face off between Mulder and Lively results, with the latter setting fire to the house. However he also sets himself on fire - yelling that he cannot be killed before dropping to the ground. We then see Lively admitted to a maximum security hospital with 5th and 6th degree burns over his entire body. However we learn that remarkably his cells are regenerating and that he will make a full recovery. As a result all flammable objects are removed from his room.....

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