Salmandria

Despite the proliferation of fire-breathing dragons across the realms, ranging from the benign Golds, Rubies and Brasses to the rapacious Reds, Lavas and Jacinths, true Fire Dragons, as pictured above, are surprisingly rare. The reasons are as varied as the planes, and in the Earthrealm it is because of dedicated efforts to eradicate them. Only some countries have understood their ecological importance and have made efforts to protect them.

Fire dragons, unlike almost all other dragons, have no desire to keep treasure. As such they do not keep lairs, although they do keep large territories and merely sleep wherever they like. These territories may be hundreds of miles across and many territories overlap at the edges. They can eat almost anything but seem to gain the greatest benefit from ashes and hot coals. They purposefully light forest fires and feast on the scorched trees even as the inferno rages all around them. They only eat trees of a certain age, and typically burn stands of fire-origin trees like jack pine and poplar. In this way the trees can disperse their seeds, and the dragon is fed.

Sadly, the United States harbours only migrating fire dragons in the extreme southwest (much to the detriment of California) as this species was officially extirpated in 1950.