Pyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words πυρ (pûr, meaning "fire, lightning") and κίνησις (kínesis, meaning "motion"), was the name coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter. The word is parallel to telekinesis, though arguably the "tele-" (meaning "from afar") rather than "-kinesis" is the part that ought to have been preserved. Critic S.T. Joshi describes it as a "singularly unfortunate coinage".

Pyrokinesis is popular in fiction, with numerous examples in films, books, and television series. These include the episode "Fire" from The X-Files, the Beyond Reality episode "Enemy in Our Midst", the One Step Beyond episode "The Burning Girl", the Fringe episode "The Road Not Taken" and the Charmed episode "Lost and Bound". Several such works, such as "The Burning Girl" pre-date Firestarter, and have direct parallels with King's work. (King himself wrote that "Firestarter has numerous science fiction antecedents".) It is King, however, that first named the idea "pyrokinesis", this name not occurring in prior works. Pyromancy is often incorrectly considered to be a synonym to pyrokinesis.