As implied in my post above, I’d find that a lot more plausible (not that my personal opinion should mean anything here, anyway).
I misunderstood Carson O’Genic’s post #16 to be making reference to accidental fires.
When I grow up I hope to accomplish the coherent use of written language.
No, Mangetout, the cite doesn’t tie 1860 to the idiom, but does refer to the use of explosives to develop oil.
I first heard the phrase from my grandfather and his brother whose father-in-law was a driller in the Oil City / Venango County Pa. area. They both worked in the business as young men (late 19th-early 20th century).
At the time dynamite was readily obtainable by anyone. “Well Shooter” eventually became a specialty, hazard playing no small role.
I’d imagine there was probably a fair bit of migration of explosives experts between the mining and oil extraction industries way back then. But the Wiki thing about it originally being maritime - ‘fire in the hold’ has to be bogus, doesn’t it?
I’m sure you meant coal mining…
No, I meant oil well drilling, but the usage in the locale I mentioned would cover both, as coal was plentiful at the time, and still extant. However coal was virtually on the surface and readily available to householder via pick and shovel. The advent of powered excavators brought ugly strip mining and attendant run off problems. I am unaware of the use of explosives for extraction there. The area is home to one of the first long wall mining innovator’s manufacturing plants.
I think that Google books hit is from 1910 or so.
Unless someone can cite some proof that there was any naval usage which said “fire in the hole” or “fire in the hold,” and implying it as a warning to others to watch out, then it comes from mining in the late 1800’s.
I know this is the complete opposite of rigorous, but the ‘fire in the hold’ thing strongly reeks of something that someone just pulled out of their ass - “hey! ships have a thing called a ‘hold’, don’t they - mebbe it’s supposed to be like ‘fire in the hold’ - you know - the hold - where they keep the gunpowder - yeah, that must be it!”
But the storage space for gunpowder was actually called the magazine. And a fire in the magazine isn’t announced by someone shouting a well-worn phrase - it’s announced by a large, violent explosion in which the ship flies to pieces.
If you look back up to my earlier post, I said that it sounded as if it ought to be “fire in the hold”, if it were naval, but I don’t claim anything for it beyond the sound. I can’t recall ever seeing “fire in the hold” in print, although I’ve heard people say it (and, judging from this thread, so have others). I suspect t’s an “eggcorn” – something that sounds right, but is nothing more than some sort of logical connection with no etymological grounding.
eggcorn, yes - that’s exactly the phenomenon I was trying to describe.