The article is devoted to researching matter of the image-symbol of fire in Leonid Andreyev’s creative works. The base of analysis is writer’s works from different stages of his creative path (“The Riddle”, “The Story of Sergey Petrovich”, “The Abyss”, “The Tocsin”, “The Thought”, “Life of Basil of Thebes”). The conclusions show that Andreyev expresses the traditional idea of fire as a strong emotion in early prose and fills the image-symbol with a fundamentally new content in later works by linking it with madness interpreted in a way of romanticism. The parallel is drawn between creative works of Andreyev and a short story “The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, who fills the image-symbol of fire with a similar content. In the context of the epoch and Russian tradition Andreev is closer to the group of artists who interpret the image of fire as a symbol of the destruction, the apocalypse, the devil (Fyodor Sologub, Alexander Blok, Ivan Bunin).