The phrase "a debate has flared" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a situation where a discussion or argument has become intense or heated.
Example: "In recent weeks, a debate has flared over the proposed changes to the education system, drawing attention from both supporters and critics."
Alternatives: "a debate has erupted" or "a debate has ignited".
In the vacuum a debate has flared about whether the church is doing enough, which has split the government.
Now, a debate has flared up over whether to rid the municipal swimming pool of its smoking section.
As a result, a debate has flared up about whether more prescribed burns should have been done before the overheated summer that Australia has experienced.
Forty years on, however, those experts are divided, and the church is under growing pressure to reject criteria based on brain death, and return to the alleged unambiguity of permanent cardiac arrest.The debate has flared up ahead of a conference on organ donation that will be held in the Vatican in November.
The debate has flared before, in the case of a Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound flight in 2009.
That old debate has flared again this week, with Zhirkov calling for a switch to an autumn-spring season, even if that means a lengthy winter break.
The immigration debate has flared in recent weeks with the passage of a new law in Arizona requiring police to question the immigration status of anyone they stop for other reasons if they suspect they are in the country illegally.
But every time, the same debate has flared up: How political are these economic decisions?
And sometimes-bitter debate has flared on the advisory board, with some members saying that Harvard's choice of which materials to include provides too narrow an answer to a basic question: Just what counts as an Emily Dickinson "poem," anyway?
The debate has flared up again recently because of technological achievements such as deep learning, which recently enabled a Google software program called AlphaGo to beat Go world champion Lee Sedol, a task considered even harder than beating the world's chess champions.
Before a day had passed, the torture debate had flared.
