Stoking the fire
The ritual at the heart of Watchfire. Stoke every 3 days, or go dark and risk losing your village.
Stoking the fire is the one thing you cannot skip. It is the heartbeat of your village.
How stoking works
- You must stoke once every 3 days.
- Each stoke costs 3 wood and a small amount of $FIRE (tuned to roughly one dollar).
- When you stoke, the fire checks your food and your village grows or shrinks accordingly (see Villagers & score).
As long as you stoke inside the 3-day window, the fire stays bright and the village carries on.
When the fire burns down to embers
Miss the 3-day window and the fire burns down to embers on its own — there's nothing to click and nothing to sign. The moment the deadline passes the village enters its rescue window automatically.
While the fire is down to embers, everything else is paused: you can't chop, gather, build, or raid. Relighting is the only way forward — see below.
Heads up
The rescue window isn't a fresh clock that starts whenever you happen to notice — it runs from your last stoke. In total you have 7 days since your last stoke to relight the embers before the village goes dark for good, whether you were watching or not.
Relighting the embers
Relighting picks up right where you left off — same villagers, same buildings, same score — and stokes the fire in one step. It burns no wood, and its $FIRE cost is higher than a normal stoke and grows with the size of your village.
Redeeming your rewards is only available while the fire is burning — see The $FIRE token. Once the fire is down to embers, relighting them or losing the village are the only paths forward.
When a village goes dark
If nobody relights the embers before the window closes — 7 days after your last stoke — the village goes dark. This happens on its own, with no transaction: past that deadline the fire simply can no longer be relit.
When a village is razed
A village that has gone dark still stands as ruins until someone razes it. Razing is a separate step and anyone can trigger it, so it may follow the moment your village goes dark, or much later.
Razing is permanent: the village NFT is burned and the village is gone for good. But it is not a loss of your rewards — anything your village had accrued pays out automatically to you as part of clearing it, whoever submitted the raze. From there it's claim and start over: found a new village and begin again, no separate claim step and no new invite code required.
The fire's states
| State | Trigger | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Burning | Stoked within the last 3 days | Play normally; stoke any time |
| Low | The 3-day timer is nearly up | Stoke now to reset the timer |
| Embers | Missed the 3-day window, within 7 days of your last stoke | Relight the embers; nothing else works |
| Gone dark | More than 7 days since your last stoke | Can no longer be relit; awaits razing |
| Razed | Cleared after going dark (anyone can trigger it) | Gone for good — rewards paid, start over |
Note
The $FIRE cost of a stoke is tuned to roughly a dollar and can change over time. The 3-day stoke window and the 7-day total lifecycle (3 days to stoke, plus a further rescue window) are fixed.