There's a prop freebie, a primitive sphere with lights attached north/south/east/west and the inbetween points. You can place the sphere in the fire, make it invisible, change the colours/intensities of the lights as required (or turn them off as needed) and point them towards your people. It's a really useful prop for adding atmospheres.

I think it's called lightball or something, I'm at work so can't check my runtime.

Edit: it's called Globall - do a search on www.whatever3d.com and hit the picture to get the download.