"Fire" is an unfinished instrumental written and produced by Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys' Smile project. It was intended to serve one part of "The Elements", a musical suite envisioned for Smile. Believing that the recording contained pyrokinetic abilities, Wilson shelved the track indefinitely, then claiming for many years to have destroyed its master tapes.

The composition was revisited several months later when "Fire" was rerecorded with a minimized arrangement, renamed "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (W. Woodpecker Symphony)", and then published for the Beach Boys' 1967 album Smiley Smile. Under the title "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", Wilson completed "Fire" as a solo artist in 2004 for Brian Wilson Presents Smile. In 2011, the Beach Boys' original 1966 recording was released in several composite forms as "The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O'Leary's Cow)" for the compilation The Smile Sessions.

Wilson was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, his first, for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow".

Named for Catherine O'Leary of the Great Chicago Fire, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" was initially composed for the Beach Boys' unreleased album Smile as the first part of "The Elements" suite: Fire. In Brian Wilson's ghostwritten 1991 autobiography Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story, the circumstances of his second LSD trip were detailed. They were purported to have involved ego death as well as death by burning, which has led some to speculate that the track is a musical adaptation of this LSD trip. According to Wilson with Gold, "It created a disturbing picture that mirrored the screams that had filled my head and plagued my sleep for years." In regard to the existence of its master tapes, "Roughly two minutes of 'Fire' music still exists, locked in the Capitol vaults, where I hope it remains. Not because I still believe it possesses a negative power; that was merely a reflection of how disturbed I was at the time. I hope that segment remains unreleased simply because it's not good music."

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