Fire ants are brutal attackers and people can have very severe reactions to the bites. I can remember my son sitting down on a curb at the zoo when he was about 3 and there apparently was a fire ant mound right there. They started biting and he started screaming. We literally had to strip him naked right there to get them all off of him and he was covered in blisters for days. My mother once got into a mound while she was working in the yard and her hand was bitten so many times so quickly that it swoll to almost twice its size and we had to run her to the ER. These are not your everyday sugar ants most people are used to seeing. They are awful and really difficult to get rid of.