There is a small graphic glitch with the fire: the fire graphic is not removed if the fire "goes out" while the game is running. If you were to quit the game or switch to another tribe slot and then go back to that game, the fire would be gone. A quick way to check is to hold an adult villager over the fire (Yikes!) and look for a message. If it says that this would be a good place to build a fire, then the fire is actually out and you should rebuild it.

Your 14 villagers should have no problem surviving on 642 units of food until the crops appear again. The food produced by the farm can sustain a village of that size, so I wouldn't get too worried about where your farmers choose to work. If their behavior annoys you too much, you might try leaving the game off for several hours and then starting it again to check on how much food they have produced. Sometimes they do better when you're not watching them.