Perhaps there has been another topic on this subject and if there has then please feel free liberate your fleeting feelings towards me/my threads. Anyway i would like to discuss destruction magic, or more specifically fire and how it would affect the environment, do you guys think that sending a fireball into a forest would torch and whole thing, forcing all the wood elf's inside running out rolling around aflame? and perhaps leaving the whole forest a (possibly permanent) smoldering mess or should flame spells it be limited to create fire rings to encase people/beasts/wives? or just plain burning people?

Pardon the pun, but flaming wont be welcome. Thoughts?

I do like the idea of a fully destructible environment.
It'd be pretty cool when clearing out a town to be able to burn down the houses too. Though having this, there would have to be a system to rebuild them as well, which would have to be done really well.
I think it'd be awesome if you could rebuild and make it a different building, make your own house! I'm not talking about on the level of Sims or anything, but being able to choose different floorplans haha. Sounds cheesy but it Would be fun and Wouldn't be a requirement for people playing so they couldn't complain.

Fire has already been confirmed to affect environment.
Also, look at the trailer. If snow is being melted by the dragon's fire, forests would too.

You can burn down a windmill and effect the nearby economy.

I don't think it would work pretty well, because there are npc's in the game who also use fire magic, and if they happen to be fighting amongst themselves while you're not around, it would be pretty awkward to return to a village or a forest that's been burned to the ground by some trigger happy daedra pyromaniac.

Okay, it might be entertaining at first, but in the long run, it would get pretty annoying I think.

I suppose fires won't extend much. It would be horrible to destroy an entire forest launching a fireball in the middel of a combat.

I'm pretty sure the fire is just a temporary thing. If the ground is scorched, I'm almost 100% sure it will "restore" itself in time.