Wall of fire dimensions

Question

Last session we re-encountered issue with Wall of fire

According to compendium:

Daily - Arcane, Conjuration, Fire, Implement

Standard Action

Area wall 8 within 10 squares

Effect: You conjure a wall of fire that lasts until the end of your next turn. The wall can be up to 4 squares high. Any creature that starts its turn adjacent to the wall takes 1d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage. Any creature that enters the wall or starts its turn there takes 3d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage (a creature can take this damage only once per turn). The wall blocks line of sight. Each square of movement that includes one or more squares of the wall costs 3 extra squares of movement.

Sustain Minor: The wall persists until the end of your next turn.

and regarding walls-

A wall fills a specified number of contiguous squares within range, starting from an origin square.

Each square of the wall must share a side—not just a corner—with at least one other square of the wall, but a square can share no more than two sides with other squares in the wall (this limitation does not apply when stacking squares on top of each other).

You can shape the wall however you like within those limitations. A solid wall, such as a wall of ice, cannot be created in occupied squares.

The argument we had was about the height of the wall. The power says that the wall can be up to 4 squares high. However we didn't agree on how many squares of wall does the caster get to place. There are basically two interpretations that we considered and we are not sure which one of them is correct.

1) The caster can make a wall that is 8 squares long and 4 squares high. (He basically gets to create 32 squares of wall.)

2) The caster can make a wall that consists of total up to 8 squares while following the rules for creating walls.

Which of these interpretations is the correct one?

Answer 1

The caster can make a wall that consists of total up to 8 squares while following the rules for creating walls.

The answer is in the rule for walls that you quoted:

A wall fills a specified number of contiguous squares within range, starting from an origin square.

Wall of fire says it creates a wall 8 within 10 squares.

This means you can create a wall with 8 contiguous squares, following the other rules for how to "construct" your magical wall.

You could construct your wall 8 squares wide by 1 square tall, 4 squares wide by 2 squares tall, or 2 squares wide by 4 squares tall. You could not create a wall that is 1 square wide by 8 squares tall, because you cannot exceed a height on your wall beyond 4 squares, per the spell description:

The wall can be up to 4 squares high.