Which rather suggests that the whole thing may or may not be psychosomatic, in a fashion similar to some versions of Martian pyrophobia. Not saying this is true in UF, of course.

>(As an aside, bending really annoys physicists, firebending most of
>all. The other forms of bending can just barely be explained as a
>kind of super-specialized telekinesis (even though it isn't really),
>but firebending violates conservation of energy and mass. Fire
>is a combustion byproduct, and firebenders aren't burning
>anything; they're just making superheated, ionized gas plasma come
>out of nowhere. That personally offends a certain breed of
>scientist.)

Aren't there already pyrokinetics out in the UF cosmos? I don't recall if Hammond or Storm have shown up, but I'm sure there've been mutants with that ability out there somewhere....