Wand of fire

From Wikihack

The wand of fire is quite easy to identify; engrave with it and it will burn into the ground. (Engraving into ice complicates things.) It is one of those directional attack wands; in emergencies, you can use it against most monsters. The wand shoots beams of fire, dealing 6d6 damage to non-fire resistant targets. The beam bounces when it hits walls or targets with reflection.

You want to obtain reflection or fire resistance to guard against monsters employing a wand of fire against you. Otherwise, be careful to leave enough room so that your own bolts of fire do not bounce from a wall back at you.

A wand of fire's most popular use is to burn Elbereth into the ground. A wand of fire's Elbereth will never degrade, and only the player can remove the engraving (by making it disappear with a wand of cancellation, make invisible, or cold). It will also become useful should you find yourself slimed.

[edit] Generation

Wands comprise 4% of all randomly-generated items in the main dungeon, 6% in containers, 5% on the Rogue level, and 8% in hell. There is a 4% chance that a randomly-generated wand will be a wand of fire.

[edit] SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the Flame Mage role conveniently starts with a wand of fire.