Fig. [for something] to spread rapidly. Rumors spread like wildfire when people are excited. This disease will spread like wildfire when it gets going.
if disease or news spreads like wildfire, it quickly affects or becomes known by more and more people Once one child in the school has become infected, the disease spreads like wildfire.Scandal spreads like wildfire round here.
Disseminate or circulate very quickly, as in The rumor about their divorce spread like wildfire. The noun wildfire means "a raging, rapidly spreading conflagration." [c. 1800]