go up in flames

Idioms  

1. Also, go up in smoke. Be utterly destroyed, as in This project will go up in flames if the designer quits, or All our work is going up in smoke. This idiom transfers a fire to other kinds of destruction. [Early 1900s]

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Example Sentences

Even if I caught the Butterfly now, this entire ship was going to go up in flames.

From Literature

One wayward spark and the whole island would go up in flames.

From Literature

But I didn’t mean for the whole world to go up in flames.

From Literature

In the days after the fire broke out, and as thousands of homes and business continued to go up in flames, then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said little about the lack of pre-deployment, which was first disclosed by The Times, instead blaming those high winds, along with a shortage of working engines and money, for her agency’s failure to quickly knock down the blaze.

From Los Angeles Times

The Chungs moved in a decade ago to Wang Cheong House – the first of the seven tower blocks at Tai Po to go up in flames.

From BBC