One of the most divisive pieces of Survivor will always be the fire-making challenge. In the earlier seasons, it was an important element to help break a tie, but eventually it became a standard piece of the Final Four’s fight to get a chance to earn the jury’s $1 million vote. And it’s…complicated whether the new format is fair or not.
Towards the beginning, it made sense to let fire be the tie-breaker because, well, something had to be. And in Survivor, as host Jeff Probst tells up at every player’s first Tribal Council, "In this game, fire represents your life. When your fire's gone, so are you." Which makes it very poetic for the last resort challenge to be about fire.
But with the emphasis Survivor has placed on outwit and the social element of the game—especially in the new era—it’s kind of confusing for a challenge to occur when there’s still enough players left in the game to have a majority vote at Tribal Council and use social gameplay to get themself to the end rather than what’s essentially a secondary immunity challenge.
I digress… the real question is whether or not our players who lost at Final Four fire-making would have won the game or not—assuming they made it to the end instead of their duel adversary. And for some of them, that was truly a $1 million fire…
Rick Devens - Survivor: Edge of Extinction
For Devens, the final fire-making challenge was truly the make-or-break moment of his game. Up until that point, he and future winner Chris Underwood had played remarkably similar games—both being sent to the Edge of Extinction early on and then winning their way back into the game—but Devens clearly had the harder job of keeping himself in the game longer. If Devens had won fire, he absolutely had the resume to win the game.
Lauren Ashley Beck - Survivor: Island of the Idols
Lauren was sent to fire because she had played the same game as future winner Tommy Sheehan and he needed her out so that he could get those jury votes and not split them between the two. In fact, objectively, Lauren may have played a better resume-game as she was the one targeted. So despite Tommy’s great social game, Lauren could have possibly squeaked out a win if she’d made it to the Final Tribal Council.
Sarah Lacina - Survivor: Winners at War
This season, Sarah and Tony Vlachos decided to actually work together and it got them far—all the way to the Final Four fire-making challenge. Ultimately, Natalie Anderson decided she couldn’t have both Sarah and Tony sitting next to her at the end and opted to split them up by putting them in fire. Tony won fire and went on to win the game, but had Sarah been the one sitting at the end, she and Tony had very similar resumes and all his votes very likely could have gone to her.
Jesse Lopez - Survivor 43
Jesse played a great strategic game across the entire season. So much so that fans at home were sure he was a lock to win. But when he lost fire-making to future winner Mike Gabler, everything went up in—literal—flames for him. He took that moment with him to the jury and made the argument that Gabler deserved to win because he was the one who took out Jesse, the best player in the game. Everyone opted to agree and award him the $1 million simply for beating Jesse at fire.
Carson Garrett - Survivor 44
The Tika Three were somehow simultaneously the underdogs and the puppeteers of this season. Had all three of them made it to the Final Tribal Council, it would have been a very close call. While future winner Yam Yam Arocho played a better social game than Carson, he played the better strategic game. There would have been a much closer split than the 7-1-0 vote it ended up being.
Kamilla Karthigesu - Survivor 48
Kamilla and future winner Kyle Fraser knew at the end of the game they could not both be sitting at the Final Three because they played the same shadow game, effectively making every move together from day 1. And if Kamilla had won fire against Eva Erickson, she would have had that challenge win to compare to Kyle’s Final Immunity win. Again, it would have been a much tighter final as some of Kyle’s votes likely would have gone to Kamilla as some of the jury were upset he took Joe Hunter to the end.
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