F-IRE, in its prehistory, began as a workshop in 1995 - a group of young musicians met to learn West African dance music, and its theory and methods of communication. They applied their learnings to inform their own compositional and improvisational languages. Timeline was one of the bands that first surfaced from this workshop.
 
Barak Schmool bandleader of Timeline started the whole affair. He was a member of Django Bates' Delightful Precipice and had grown up musically inside the fertile environment around Loose Tubes. As a regular teacher at City University and Royal Academy of Music, it was his experimental pro-community bands Akwaaba drum orchestra, Méta Méta and Rhythms of the City that were part of the attractive force that pulled people together to form F-IRE.
 
Joining him in these initial creative explorations were amongst others, Eska Mtungwazi, Robert Mitchell, Tom Skinner, Iian Pattinson, Nick Ramm, Tom Herbert, Leo Taylor and David Okumu. Ingrid Laubrock, Ben Davis and Jonny Phillips came to F-IRE activities through their interest in studying African rhythms – Maurizio Ravalico and Finn Peters through their involvement in the Afro-Cuban Music of Méta Méta – Pete Wareham and Seb Rochford through their connection with Tom Herbert – Justin Quinn, Tom Arthurs and Jonathan Bratoëff through their involvement with F-IRE jazz workshops led by Stéphane Payen – Julia Biel through her songwriting partnership with Jonny Phillips.
 
F-IRE (Fellowship for Integrated Rhythmic Expression) was named later in 1998, and came to  encompass this community of artists all of whose outlook stretched beyond 'music alone' and  included dance, poetry, film etc. just as much a part of their conception as the sound they produced. Each F-IRE member crosses or ignores boundaries that regularly pigeon-hole artists - developing in their own direction – whether involving circus or electronica, free-improv or classical composition.
 
F-IRE has 3 main communal objectives: to sustain the creative lives of their members and the surrounding community; to ensure that their creativity functions well inside the wider community; to share their knowledge and opportunities.
 
F-IRE has built its success through the quality of its work in education, performance and recording – its 3 principal spheres of activity – all of this was (until 2005) achieved without funding.
 
The success of the F-IRE concept was affirmed in July 2004 when it was awarded the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation. In addition, all musicians nominated within the 'Rising Star' category were members of F-IRE. The whole F-IRE Collective was also given the chance to tour nationally through the CMN in 2005, the highest level of government-funded support for creative musicians.