By September's end, a general conflagration was underway.

Such attacks might trigger a wider regional conflagration.

A tiny spark may become a great conflagration.

The city looks as if it had just recovered from a conflagration.

A small forest fire can easily spread and quickly become a great conflagration.

The organization of a task force and resources is underway at the site of the conflagration.

Moreover, conflict within such a country would be bound to spill over its borders, possibly sparking a major regional conflagration.

Could something similar happen digitally, with a spark of misinformation igniting a conflagration and wreaking havoc before the truth is revealed?

In seventeenth century Europe, a local religious uprising by Bohemian Protestants against the Catholic Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II triggered that era s conflagration.

And going to war against any of the major powers to protect a suffering minority would certainly trigger a much wider conflagration.

Though bonds are hardly a perfect hedge against such risks, they typically beat stocks (except, perhaps, in cases of global conflagration, when both fare badly).

Her face shone with a vivid glow, but it was not a joyous glow it resembled the terrible glow of a conflagration on a dark night.

In turn, Egypt, propped up by massive US aid, has secured the region from a larger conflagration, even though the Israel Palestine conflict has continued to smolder.

The Soviet Union may have been doomed, but the world has Gorbachev to thank for the fact that the empire he oversaw ended without a bloody conflagration.

This test explains the effective impunity of China, Russia, or any other major power however badly it behaves internally, any attempted invasion would trigger a much larger conflagration.

As the World Bank s chief economist and senior vice president, I was in the middle of the conflagration and the debates about its causes and the appropriate policy responses.

He argues that Syria is exceptional it is unlike Lebanon and Iraq, and will find a way to withstand a sectarian conflagration because it is a country of minorities .

But, while Britain and Germany were each other s most significant trading partners in 1914, that did not prevent a conflagration that set back global economic integration for a half century.

The prospect of a Middle East conflagration has prompted an airlift of senior American officials to Israel to warn of the devastating consequences that an Israeli attack on Iran might have.

Yet, absent a large scale conflagration, there is a fair chance that 2010 will see a restoration of weak growth in the US, Europe, and Japan, and probably robust growth in most emerging markets.

I pointed out the possibility of a Middle East conflagration equivalent to the Thirty Years War in Europe, which is estimated to have killed between half and three quarters of the population of some of the participating states.

The prospect of a Middle East conflagration has prompted an airlift of senior American officials to Israel to warn of the devastating consequences that an Israeli attack on Iran might have. Indeed, the Obama administration s main challenge these days is not peacemaking, but regional conflict management and preemption.

In a recent conversation about Syria with a couple of well known foreign policy experts, one participant suggested that the Middle East s current borders, drawn in colonial times, cannot last and must be redrawn. I pointed out the possibility of a Middle East conflagration equivalent to the Thirty Years War in Europe, which is estimated to have killed between half and three quarters of the population of some of the participating states.