English Reference

Idiom

fight fires

Meaning

To deal with urgent matters and minor emergencies rather than longer-term work.

Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Examples

“I spend all day fighting fires at the office.”

“The manager could not finish the project because she spent the entire week fighting fires instead.”

“Instead of focusing on long-term strategy, the team spent their limited resources fighting fires caused by the sudden collapse of the supply chain.”

Examples

simple

“I spend all day fighting fires at the office.”

contextual

“The manager could not finish the project because she spent the entire week fighting fires instead.”

complex

“Instead of focusing on long-term strategy, the team spent their limited resources fighting fires caused by the sudden collapse of the supply chain.”

Key words

Related idioms

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English Reference