Couldn't help putting my 2 cents worth in here. You will probably want to turn off the shadow for your fire object so it doesn't cast its own shadow. :^) Also place an invisible light source (with weak output)where the flame is, to simulate the light given off by the flame. I use a volume flame texture I got by surfing the links here called (I think) Menno's Fire, very similar to Clay's. Maybe Clay is Menno? It is very cheap to render, and an example can be seen in my gallery here in a piece called "Mask of Reason". But it is more suited to campfires and torches.

This is not my "second childhood". I'm not finished with the first one yet.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

"I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather....not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus." - Jack Handy