Roman destructive-fire god; the Volcanalia of August 23 was apotropaic — Romans threw small fish into the Vulcanal bonfire as substitute-life to ward off summer fires from granaries and farmsteads. The Vulcanal in the Comitium predates the Forum proper. Italic identity is independent of and predates the craftsman-god Hephaestus equation, which added metalworking iconography and mythology in the middle Republic. Per Wissowa 1912; Dumézil 1970; Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (1983-85).