spread like wildfire
Verb
Meaning
spread like wildfire (third-person singular simple present spreads like wildfire, present participle spreading like wildfire, simple past and past participle spread like wildfire)
(intransitive, simile) To spread or disseminate rapidly or uncontrollably.
The virus spread like wildfire throughout the Internet.
Examples
The idea had spread like wildfire .... like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it.
Ebola isn't a respiratory virus. It doesn't spread through the airborne route. So it's not likely to spread like wildfire around the world and kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. That's what I think of as the next big one.
At Lord's on 27 May, the Australians defeated a strong MCC team, including Grace, by nine wickets in a single day's play. citation According to Chris Harte, news of the match "spread like wildfire and created a sensation in London and throughout England".
Accounts of this spread like wildfire across the South and the North.
In the moments after Akol was shot, early reports of an active shooter on scene spread like wildfire as residents in the neighbourhood woke up to the sounds of sirens and a large police presence on Gilmour Street.
If we let the virus spread like wildfire – especially in the most vulnerable regions of the world — it would kill millions of people.”