“My preliminary findings indicate that humans are not universally fascinated by fire. On the contrary, this fascination is a consequence of inadequate experience with fire during development.” University of California, Daniel Fessler.

"Where fire is generally used in day-to-day activities, people only become interested in fire until they master their control of it. At that point there is a significant dropoff of interest. In modern civilization, where that is not the case, interest in looking at fire and being mesmerized by watching it persists throughout life."

I would wager if you watch pyrotechnicians and other fire-users in a modern civilization you will notice they don't fire-watch in the same way others do. Tribal folks apparently don't behave this way.