Just fire involved?
Just gunfire involved?
Could be any combination of fire and gunfire?
Or what?
Violent or highly emotional (big argument/fight) ending.
It depends entirely on the context.
To clarify, I should have added in the OP that you are reading it in news article headline. Say, a hostage situation for example.
And, I should have put this in IMHO. I shall report it myself.
Yeah, it’s a metaphor for me too. Fire is not involved.
In general conversation, yes, it often a metaphor. It may also be a metaphor in certain kinds of news reports, such as for political meetings.
In this kind of situation, I would certainly think gunfire and explosions.
It blowed up real good.
Non-metaphorically? Something caught on fire big time. Gunfire and no flames would never occur to me.
“the situation came to a fiery end”
Fire, charred, conflagration, firestorm, inferno, burning, smoke, Texas chili.
To me it actually means something akin to another metaphor: it “crashed and burned”. My understanding: The situation totally destroyed itself beyond any chance of getting fixed. Which reminds me of yet another situation: Humpty Dumpty.
J.
This. Gunfire isn’t “fiery.”
I’d take it literally in that context: Fire. As in lots of flames and some smoke. Nothing else.
Moved as requested by OP to IMHO.
Intense flames, no guns.
Flames, with probably some kind of explosion as well.
Crashed and burned. Like airplane crash.
I read a great deal about the Inquisition which lasted from 1200 to 1812 (Yes, 600 years) in which the Holy Catholic Church burned tens of thousands at the stake for (mostly for nothing - just BS) being Heretics, BIgamists, Wizards, Witches (they adored watching people burn after months of the most horrendous torture - which included waterboarding exactly as the CIA did it) and especially Jews. Today I was reading that Chas. II of England, new king at age 17 and his new bride were going to visit Madrid. The Spanish wanted to do something special, so built a huge stage, and a 3 story bldg for invited guest viewing, and consigned about 78 people to the flames. The Spanish royals loved it and King Chas. applauded to show that he was not too exhausted after a whole day of watching people burn to death. (see: Wm. H. Rule, Hist. of the Inquisition, 1878 2 vols).
This may be an early form of a fiery end courtesy of a sadistic regime that lasted 60 years and was only halted when Napoleon B. entered Spain and later Italy and told them to knock it off.
Not just fire but fire in epic proportions.
Waco.