Eyewitness accounts agreed on only one aspect of the inferno which devastated Alola centuries ago - that an ear-piercing bell shined at its center, so brightly that it could be seen clearly through the fire. Some understood the bell as a warning, and escaped with plenty of time to spare; others saw it as a treasure, constructed out of a magical form of gold impervious to fire, and were burnt to death after doomed efforts to seize the bell from within the heart of the flames. And those who ventured forth to seize the bell but survived – or a few who watched the inferno from just the right angle after escaping to safety (or, if one prefers, were made delusional by burns and smoke inhalation) - spoke of seeing flashes of a feline shape amidst the blackened fire.
Historians today broadly agree on what the accounts describe, although many, just like the investigators at the time, are admittedly puzzled by what they must conclude. A Torracat - one surely stronger and crueler than any Incineroar alive today, yet a Torracat all the same - must have been the source of the blaze.
The lands which that mighty Torracat burnt have been built up in the centuries since, and nothing remains of either the Torracat or its fire, except for one strange legend. This legend claims that the Torracat's bell was discovered after the fire finished burning, but the King of Alola at the time considered it cursed, and would not allow it to remain in his lands. He sold it beyond the sea to Ecruteak City in Johto, where it – and, perhaps, the raging Torracat's spirit - was installed in a shrine to Ho-oh.