Harold Paprika was a resident of an all-white neighbourhood in Jamaica, Queens where he was unhappily married to his feminist wife Ethyl. While discriminatory to non-whites, Harold kept his bigotry to himself, having no target to direct it at. This all changed when the Simmons Family moved in to the area, causing Harold to become angry about African Americans living in the same neighbourhood as him. Developing a colourful costume and ingenious double barrelled flamethrower, Harold became Wildfire, and made it his mission to scare the Simmons family out of the neighbourhood.

His first attack on the family led him into conflict with Luke Cage (who at the time was using his Power Man alias) who had been hired by the Simmons to protect them from their hostile neighbours. Cage easily got the upper hand, and cornered Wildfire, but the villain was able to escape when the other residents came to his aid, believing Harold to be the victim in this situation.

Days later Wildfire would attack again, this time torching the Simmons house, before being attacked by Luke Cage and his sometime ally Quentin Chase, with the villain once again fleeing from the 'Hero for Hire'. This time no aid came from the other residents, due to news of the death of the Simmon's youngest child in Wildfire's first attack. Upon hearing this Wildfire was distraught, whilst a bigot he never intended to become a murderer. This flash of conscious gave Cage enough time to catch him, and defeat him.

Wildfire turned up sometime later, at the AIM Weapons Expo, to watch Crossfire fight Batroc the Leaper's chosen fighters. He later joined the fight when Crossbones was revealed to be Captain America.

Powers and Abilities

Harold managed to create a working flamethrower, which looked similar to the ones owned by the military. This suggests he had knowledge of how to create incendiary devices, or at the very least knew someone who did.