What fiery folk have: energy during brief altercation (5,5)

'what fiery folk have' is the definition.
(angry people have short fuses)

'energy during brief altercation' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'energy' could be 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mc2) and 'e' is found in the answer.
'brief' could be 'short' (synonyms) and 'short' is located in the answer.
'altercation' could be 'fuss' (fuss can mean an altercation) and 'fuss' is found in the remaining letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...