Fire
To fire a course is to tell the kitchen to start cooking it now. Dishes are rung in when the order is taken but held until the call, so "fire table 12" means table 12's next course begins at that moment. The call usually comes from the expeditor or the server watching the table.
Firing is how the floor controls kitchen timing. An order sits on the board from the moment it is rung, but nothing on it moves until somebody calls it. That gap is what lets a table linger over drinks while their entrées stay uncooked.
Most fire calls are judgments made in the moment: the table is halfway through the appetizer, so fire the mains. A course fired too early sits in the window and dies there. Fired too late, the table waits and notices. Neither failure appears in any report, so service timing stays a matter of floor judgment rather than something a restaurant measures.
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