I keep reading people mention that the song has an underlying environmental theme, and the voiceover in wildfire III certainly suggests that, but I simply don't get that vibe from this song, or it's predecessor.
If you look at this song as part of a whole (Wildfire from Reckoning Night, and then Wildfire II and Wildfire III on Stones Grow Her Name), the obvious meaning is that:
There is a man who (believes he) is unfairly scapegoated for problems in a town due tot he acts of some of his family members. In a fit of rage, he tries to burn down the town (Wildfire).
In Wildfire II, the son of the narrator in Wildfire returns to find that the townsfolk have created a dark mythos regarding his family line. The family is now a sort of "boogeyman", and the man is appalled at all the hate that is thrown towards his family name and concerned that he will be unfairly persecuted because of his lineage. He has moments of anger, but on reflection realizes that the history between his family and the town forms a terrible cycle of violence, with the whole family being unfairly persecuted for the acts of a few, until someone in the family snaps and does something horrible, which causes the town to hate and fear the family even more. The narrator realizes that if he succumbs to anger because of the townsfolk hateful ways, he'll just be continuing the cycle.
I'm about to go off the deep end here:
In Scandinavian folklore, trolls are oftentimes depicted as outsiders and antagonists against societies. In the last hundred years, some modernists retelling have also painted trolls as victims of urban sprawl and the destruction of nature. If we were to run with this theme, it would fit in especially well with Wildfire III, but what about I and II? No idea. Maybe the "family infamous" in question take the role of the troll, and by fleeing into the mountains become representatives of the wildnerness. In this light, the cycle of violence between the unnamed family and the unnamed town is an allegory of the relationship between Man and his attempts to control nature.
I keep reading people mention that the song has an underlying environmental theme, and the voiceover in wildfire III certainly suggests that, but I simply don't get that vibe from this song, or it's predecessor.
If you look at this song as part of a whole (Wildfire from Reckoning Night, and then Wildfire II and Wildfire III on Stones Grow Her Name), the obvious meaning is that:
There is a man who (believes he) is unfairly scapegoated for problems in a town due tot he acts of some of his family members. In a fit of rage, he tries to burn down the town (Wildfire).
In Wildfire II, the son of the narrator in Wildfire returns to find that the townsfolk have created a dark mythos regarding his family line. The family is now a sort of "boogeyman", and the man is appalled at all the hate that is thrown towards his family name and concerned that he will be unfairly persecuted because of his lineage. He has moments of anger, but on reflection realizes that the history between his family and the town forms a terrible cycle of violence, with the whole family being unfairly persecuted for the acts of a few, until someone in the family snaps and does something horrible, which causes the town to hate and fear the family even more. The narrator realizes that if he succumbs to anger because of the townsfolk hateful ways, he'll just be continuing the cycle.
I'm about to go off the deep end here:
In Scandinavian folklore, trolls are oftentimes depicted as outsiders and antagonists against societies. In the last hundred years, some modernists retelling have also painted trolls as victims of urban sprawl and the destruction of nature. If we were to run with this theme, it would fit in especially well with Wildfire III, but what about I and II? No idea. Maybe the "family infamous" in question take the role of the troll, and by fleeing into the mountains become representatives of the wildnerness. In this light, the cycle of violence between the unnamed family and the unnamed town is an allegory of the relationship between Man and his attempts to control nature.