Kanda 6
The forest fire
This kanda belongs to the elder brother — but somebody else swallowed the fire
Talavana, where nobody went
The palm trees of Talavana were heavy with ripe fruit, yet none of the boys from Gokul dared enter. The reason was Dhenuka — an asura in the form of a donkey, who, with his companions, had taken over the entire forest. Anyone who went in to pick fruit, he killed with his kicks.
The boys put it to Balarama and Krishna — "There is so much fruit that the ground is covered with it, but no one can go in and eat any."
Balarama smiled. "Come on, then."
He caught a tree and shook it; ripe palm-fruit began to thud to the ground. Hearing the noise, Dhenuka came at a gallop, kicking.
Balarama did not step back an inch. He caught his two hind legs, swung him over his head, and flung him against a tall palm. Dhenuka struck the tree and was killed on the spot.
A stranger in the game
Some days later the boys were playing a game — the loser carried the winner on his back and ran to a fixed spot.
That day there was a new boy in the group. Nobody looked hard at him; he looked like any other boy in the game.
When his turn came he had to run with Balarama on his back. He ran — and kept running, past the fixed spot, away from the group, and faster, and faster.
Balarama, on his back, felt the body under him growing, getting heavier. This was not a boy. This was Pralamba, another asura sent by Kamsa.
Balarama struck him once on the head. Pralamba crashed to the ground and died. From this Balarama got one of his names — Pralambari.
And then the forest caught fire
One day the cows grazed their way far into the dry forest, and the boys went after them, looking. Evening was beginning to fall.
No one saw how the fire began. All they knew was that suddenly there were flames all around — in the dry Talavana a fire spreads faster than the wind — and in the middle of the ring, the cows and the boys.
The boys panicked. Smoke was filling their eyes, the cows were bellowing.
"Shut your eyes," somebody said — perhaps Krishna. "And don't open them until I say."
What happened, nobody saw
The boys shut their eyes. The heat was on their faces, then slowly it lessened, then it was gone.
"Open them now."
Their eyes opened, and the forest was quiet. No flames, no crackle, not even smoke. The cows stood there, safe.
Krishna had swallowed the entire forest fire in a single breath.
Two asuras died in this kanda, and both at Balarama's hands. But the moment everyone's life was saved was Krishna's. The two asura battles belong to Balarama; the final miracle belongs to Krishna.
Note: Dhenuka is killed by Balarama — this is found in both the Harivamsha and the Vishnu Purana, and the method described is almost the same in both. Pralamba too dies at Balarama's hands (mentioned in the Vishnu Purana and the Mahabharata; the eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavata's tenth skandha is also given to it). Swallowing the forest fire is Krishna's work and its firm location is the Bhagavata Purana — this same detail was not found in the Harivamsha in this check, so it cannot be called something every text says.
Source: from several texts, The forest fire