A Firekiln was a type of warship deployed by the battle fleet of Storm-hair Warlord Nuso Esva's realm. Heavily armed, five Firekilns were as powerful as a single Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. In 0 ABY, one of Esva's attack squadrons that included eight Firekilns engaged and attempted to capture part of the Galactic Empire's Task Force Admonitor—whose flagship was the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Admonitor—in the Unknown Regions' Teptixii system. However, the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Chimaera arrived and divided the squadron, which then fled.
Shortly after, twenty-eight Firekilns of Esva's Eastern Fleet fought Imperial forces—including the Admonitor and the Chimaera—in the Candoras sector's Poln system. With the assistance of the Imperial Death Squadron fleet, however, the Empire was able to destroy the Eastern Fleet.
Firekilns were a type of warship with shields inferior to those of an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. Armed with heavy weaponry that included laser cannons, five Firekilns had firepower equal to that of an Imperial I. The starships were equipped with engines and a hyperdrive.
The Firekilns were used in ship-to-ship space warfare.
Senior Captain Thrawn, whose forces fought Firekilns
The Firekilns were used by the Storm-hair warlord Nuso Esva within his realm's battle fleet. Esva's Eastern Fleet included twenty-eight Firekilns. One of the warlord's attack squadrons was formed by eight of the warships and twenty-seven escorts.
As part of Esva's campaign against the Galactic Empire during his conflict with Imperial Chiss Senior Captain Thrawn in 0 ABY, the warlord infiltrated the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Chimaera. Having gained command of the Star Destroyer, Esva, who was under the pseudonym of Imperial Court member Lord Odo, ordered the Chimaera to travel to the Unknown Regions' Teptixii system.
The Chimaera then arrived in the middle of a battle between the Empire's Task Force Admonitor—led by the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Admonitor—and Esva's attack squadron. The Firekilns, protected by their escorts, attempted to disable the Admonitor so that Esva's forces could capture the Imperial task force's two Strike-class medium cruisers and four Carrack-class light cruisers to add them to the Storm-hair warlord's fleet. Knowing his own forces' plans, Esva ordered Captain Calo Drusan of the Chimaera to angle the ship thirty degrees to port and set its vector to divide the attack squadron by dividing its screening starships, which would allow the Admonitors laserfire to reach the Firekilns and damage them significantly. The Firekilns and their escorts, unwilling to risk destruction, then jumped into hyperspace.
Death Squadron (pictured) engaged Firekilns.
After Esva brought Task Force Admonitor, Thrawn's DeepWater-class light freighter Lost Reef, and the Chimaera to the Poln system, which was located in the Outer Rim Territories' Candoras sector, the warlord's Eastern Fleet arrived. Trapping Task Force Admonitor with the gravity well of Poln Minor, the second planet in the Poln system, the warlord separated the two Imperial Star Destroyers from Candoras' sector fleet, preventing the fleet from assisting the warships. The Storm-hair also set the Chimaera—whose bridge helm controls he sabotaged—on a collision course with a nearby Golan I space station and ordered his twenty-eight Firekilns to destroy the Empire's forces if they moved to escape Poln Minor's gravity well and help the Chimaera.
Revealing his true identity, Esva also told the Chimaeras senior captain that once he had destroyed the Chiss, the Firekilns would destroy Poln Major and Minor; however, the Lost Reef used its tractor beam to move the Chimaera away from its collision course. The Empire's Death Squadron fleet, commanded by Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader, then arrived and destroyed the Eastern Fleet, and Esva fled aboard his Kazellis-class light freighter Salaban's Hope.
Firekilns appeared in Timothy Zahn's 2011 novel Choices of One.