Technicolor Fire

Red, yellow and orange is so last season.
Image by Andrew Dile

Fire in Real Life is mostly a mix of reds, yellows, and oranges. In fiction, fire occasionally shows up as a different color, either to show that the fire is magical or "unnatural", has different capabilities, or just plain Rule of Cool. Green and blue flames are the most common. A few common variants are when illusionists create blue Faux Flames or when those Playing with Fire make their pyrokinesis distinctive by having it burn a different color.

While colorful flames can appear in a wide variety of shades and contexts, certain varieties are particularly common and most likely to be associated with specific origins and properties:

• Black: One of the rarer colors, black fire is often used to symbolize that whatever is producing it is a very big deal and decidedly unnatural.
• Blue: One of the most common alternative colors, blue fire tends to be one of three things: very hot or otherwise special, reflecting how blue flames are typically hotter than red-orange ones in real life; unnaturally cold; or associated with spirits and other supernatural events.
• Green: Green flames are usually associated with malevolent or fully demonic places and beings; a truly evil villain with fire-based powers will often produce fire of this color. Alternatively, green flames are also associated with chemical fires and technological weaponry, in order to signify that the fire is created in an artificial manner and is more potent and tenacious than natural flame.
• White: White fire is usually black fire's opposite number. Flames of this color are usually holy or produced from otherwise blessed sources, and may have the ability to selectively burn impure things. Instead of or in addition to this, white fire may be incredibly hot.

This is still Truth in Television: flames will appear blue if they reach high enough temperatures, and many pure elements burn in colors other than orange (copper, for example, burns green). The latter is a commonly used method of discovering the chemical composition of a substance (called a flame test), and it's also the underlying principle for the different colors we see in fireworks. However, it should be noted that while fire can be made to burn most any color with the right chemicals, including colorless, a truly black flame (as opposed to a "black" flame that has a white core) is physically impossible.^note Flames can absorb light and cast shadows due to particles like soot in the flame, but even if there are enough to block light, the heat of the flame would make them visibly glow some color anyway. The colour would have to be something beyond indigo. Or far red. The former case doesn't happen as hotter objects go from glowing red to glowing blue, but never beyond that. The latter case, where the glow is far red, is not generally called a flame but smoke.

Note that invisible (to the naked eye) flames are possible.◊

See also Fire Is Red and Technicolor Wind.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Blue Exorcist:
  • Rin has blue fire that forms horns while he's in his demon form, and is pretty much surrounded by it as a demon. The color comes from him being the son of Satan.
  • Shima can summon a demon that uses black fire.
• Code Geass: In the first episode of season 2, the Britannian soldiers use purple flamethrowers in Babel Tower, apparently just to create an eerie atmosphere for Lelouch's ensuing awesomeness.
• Digimon Adventure: Piyomon's green "Magical Fire" attack. Flavor text reveals that it literally is a magical fire - it's a psychic attack where the creature hit only feels the sensation of being burned, but isn't actually harmed physically. Other Digimon also provide examples, some more realistically-coloured than others, such as Garurumon, DeathMeramon and BlueMeramon (blue), Impmon, Belphemon and DarkLizarmon (black), Holydramon (white), and Coredramon and Cerberumon (green).
• Dr. STONE: When Chrome is first introduced as a "sorcerer", he tries to impress Senku with his "Rainbow Bridge" technique, which involves changing the color of a fire. However, the scientifically-minded Senku easily sees through this, explaining that Chrome is just throwing different chemicals like salt and sulfur into the fire.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Totomaru, one of Phantom Lord's Element Four specialises in Rainbow Fire magic. This makes him able to make and manipulate different kinds of magical fire based on color. Natsu, who fought him at one point and who literally eats fire to recharge/enhance his fire-breathing dragon powers said one color tasted cool and another smelled like crap.
  • Macao Conbolt from the Fairy Tail guild uses a kind of fire magic known as Purple Flare, which, as its name says, produces purple flames.
  • After the seven-year timeskip, it's revealed that Macao's son Romeo knows how to make not only purple flames, but also all sorts of other colors, and that he learned this from none other than Totomaru.
  • Zancrow on the other hand, uses Flame God Slayer magic. Like all God Slayer magic, the element he uses is black or at least dark in color and of a higher power than Natsu's. Natsu still manages to absorb his fire and use it with his own.
  • Jellal Fernandes is shown to be able to produce a yellow fire known as the Flame of Rebuke, which is powerful enough to initiate Dragon Force when given to Natsu.
  • God Serena, one of the Spriggan 12 of the Alvarez Empire, has eight Dragon Slayer lacrimas inside of his body. One of them is Purgatory Dragon Slayer Magic, which produces a kind of dark-colored flame which is implied to be extremely hot.
• Flame of Recca: Kurei can create a pale blue flame, as opposed to Recca's normal-coloured fire. In the anime however, his flames are a light violet color.
• The Garden of Sinners: Azaka generates multicolored flames that are a mix of various shades of blue, green, purple, white and red.
• Inuyasha: Shippo can summon blue "foxfire" flames.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Stardust Crusaders: After Jotaro destroys DIO in the final battle, his body emits blue flames.
  • Golden Wind: In Narancia's battle against Formaggio, he sets off several car explosions that surround the area in purple fire.
• Kaze no Stigma: The Kannagi are a family of fire users. Genma Kannagi, the father of the male protagonist, wields the blue Divine Flame, which is the most powerful of all flames. Ayano Kannagi can summon crimson Divine Flames. Plus, Genma, Ayano, and Ren's normal flame color is gold instead of normal orange flames.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Ilulu's dragon form is covered in black flames.
• My Hero Academia: The villain Dabi has the power to create blue flames. Pro hero Endeavor's flames are normally the usual red-orange, but one of his techniques concentrates the flame into a blowtorch-like effect that turns the flame blue.
• Naruto: The legendary Amaterasu jutsu summons a black flame that can burn anything and cannot be extinguished for seven days and seven nights.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Negi Springfield in his Magia Erebia Armationem of Incendium Gehennae ("Hell's Conflagration"), a high-level fire- and darkness-based spell, glows with black flames; they apparently cause Mana Drain.
• One Piece:
  • Ace has the standard red fire Logia Devil Fruit. A fellow commander in the Whitebeard Pirates (Marco, the only one who outranks him) has a Phoenix Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit, allowing him to turn into a phoenix. Among other abilities, the notable one is being made of blue fire that allows him to heal a great deal of wounds on himself, referred to as the Blue Flames of Resurrection.
  • During the Wano Kuni arc, Sanji's upgrades his Diable Jambe into Ifrit Jambe, with his red flames turning blue because of the increased heat.
• Reborn! (2004): The attribute of the flames (i.e. Sky, Storm, Clouds, etc) is indicated by their color.
• Sailor Moon Crystal: Blue-green flames with strangely dark nimbuses light the sconces and torchieres of the villainous Dark Kingdom, and are at least partly responsible for its Unnaturally Blue Lighting.
• Shakugan no Shana: Most powers manifest as flames, which have different color for every character, including silver, black, and rainbow. One character even has lightning as her "flame".
• Tiger & Bunny: Lunatic produces blue/green flames.
• YuYu Hakusho: Hiei's Darkness Flame attacks are all composed of black fire.
• Zombie Powder: Gamma Akutabi has the Black Flames of Bloodlust.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes:
  • Kalo's Flaming Hair is blue.
  • In the first episode of Season 8, the process for Big M. and Little M. to summon the magician Huo Haha involves them setting up a campfire that turns purple once he does show up.
• Say Hi to Pencil!: In "Angry Red", a god of anger gives Red the power of anger. Red's resulting Burning with Anger creates purple flames rather than the more traditional red/orange.

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • The card Ghostfire is flavored as transparent (and therefore invisible) fire.
  • The MTG novel The Purifying Fire has a white, cool fire that is actually a source of pure White Mana.
  • Eldraine is a rare plane where pyromancy is predominantly associated with White mana. The knights of Ardenvale pass through a circle of white flames similar to the purifying fire, burning away the impure but letting the righteous pass, while several of their order weaponise white and silver flames.
  • In the Ravnica Cycle novel Guildpact, the two dragons breathe fire matching the colors of their scales: blue fire for the blue dragon, and white fire for the albino.

Comic Books

• B.P.R.D. and Lobster Johnson feature a suit of Powered Armor that can generate freaky blue-black flames (and is used by a succession of supervillains calling themselves The Black Flame). It's not really fire, though, but a cosmic energy called Vril Power that was used by the ancient Hyperborean civilization.
• It turns out that Thomas Raymond didn't actually get his powers from a Superhuman Transfusion from the original Human Torch. His Inhuman heritage was just partially catalyzed and his powers allowed him to perfectly mimic the Playing with Fire abilities he witnessed. After having his heritage fully catalyzed by terrigen it turns out his power is actually chemical transmutation and his flames are now bright purple.
• JLA: A League of One: Drakul has a special green fire which forcibly transforms gnomes into Drakugnome minions.
• Justice League of America: Fire can control mystical green fire. Likewise, the DC sorceress Jinx can conjure green flames, and is shown in her very first appearance.
• The New Guardians: Snowflame can make white flames thanks to his cocaine based powers (apparently cocaine is literal White Magic now).
• Supergirl: The villain Nightflame can magically conjure and control green flames.

Fan Works

• All For Luz:
  • Luz's "Flamethrower" Quirk that were once orange/red in color before turn bright blue/white to denote how much hotter and more powerful the flames burn after her "Quirk Awakening". Although she can still turn it back to normal color by toning down the temperature.
  • Hindter's "Beast Flames" are black in color
• Contraptionology!: When the Everfree Forest catches fire in Infernal Machines, Twilight's narration describes it as burning with "a peculiar citrusy hue".
• Destiny Intertwined: Dragon fire can come in a rainbow of colors, although it leans towards more mundane hues on average. Its most common shades are orange, red, and yellow, followed by blue. Green and purple are also possible, but very rare. Green Fire in particular is a sign of latent dark dragon ancestry — the very first dragons with green flame were born to a Fire dragon and a Shadow dragon — and, as such, eggs likely to produce a dragon with this color flame are usually smashed to avoid scandal.
• Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Sunset can produce different-colored flames with different effects, which are tied to her emotions.
  • Her "normal" fire is the usual orange-red.
  • The flames of her Aoihi Senko are blue, representing her pride and is her main offensive-based attack.
  • The flames of her Midorihi Hashira are green, representing her intellect and is her strategic move since they work like landmines that explode at her command.
  • The flames of her Shirohi Yume are white, representing her love for others and her desire to be in multiple places to protect them.
  • The flames of her Kurohi Moegara are black, representing her wrath and her desire to utterly destroy those who would stand against her and harm those precious to her. Noticeably, these black flames are just as capable of hurting her as her enemies if she's not careful.
• Half Past Adventure: Huntress Wizard's magical flames are consistently green, as are the flames she sees in a Prophetic Dream which resemble the lich's horns.
• Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Kengo or rather his brainwashed personality Apep fights with purple flames.
• Kaleidoscope (MHA): Izuku's quirk is "Kaleidoscope fire", which in its base state is a multicolored fire that he uses to burn things, cause small explosions and throws as fireballs. It can also be separated into individual colors, with each one having its own unique ability. For example, green fire gives him Super-Strength, yellow gives him Super-Speed, Pink gives him Healing Hands, etc.
• Poké Wars: In Poké Wars: The Files of Doctor Kaminko, some of the soldiers use the IW-229 "Houndoom" flamethrower to clear Mount Moon of Zubat. The flamethrower uses a highly toxic organoborane fuel that burns with brilliant green flames.
• Soul Eater: Troubled Souls and Soul Eater Zeta feature the Vladingham Family, a clan of individuals who are capable of producing and manipulating wavelength flames colored either blue or purplish-blue. This skill is called Soul Blaze, and it's an innate ability.
• With Strings Attached: Blackfire is a sword that flames black.

Films — Animated

• Beowulf (2007): The presence of Grendel causes fires to turn blue.
• Fantasia: The "Night on Bald Mountain" segment features blue, green, yellow and even magenta flames.
• Frozen II: The fire spirit's fire is purplish-pinkish, indicating that this is a supernatural fire and not a normal one.
• Hercules: Hades has blue flames for hair, which turn red when he's angered. Originally reversed, an example of the artists doing their homework. Changed by the producers because the audience are morons and would be confused ("Why does he turn blue when he's mad? Shouldn't he stay red?")
• Pokémon 3: Entei's flames are predominantly a deep pink, with the exception of his final attack against the Unown, which displayed a bright blue shade.
• The Prince of Egypt: The Burning Bush is depicted as pale pink flames. It also appears as more of an aural emanation rather than actual fire. This might be Shown Their Work since according to the story, the bush drew Moses' attention because it burned without being consumed.
• Promare: The flames produced by the Burnish mutants are a vivid purple with bright green and sky blue at their core, though individual Burnish may display different shades of fire. Burnish fire is also jagged and polygonal, which isn’t simply a stylistic choice: a pizzeria oven is shown burning in completely normal colors and shapes, and it’s eventually revealed that the Burnish are symbiotically linked to sentient flame aliens from Another Dimension, where fire presumably looks and works very differently.
• Sleeping Beauty: Maleficent breathes greenish fire as a dragon.

Films — Live-Action

• Big Trouble in Little China opens with a police officer demanding to know what happened in the titular neighborhood from Egg Shen, because a building was reported to have been consumed by a "green" fireball.
• Brazil: When Sam defeats the Samurai, jets of pure red flame shoot out of its armor. In the Criterion Collection DVD Commentary, Terry Gilliam comments that the effects crew had a particularly hard time producing that color of fire.
• Hellboy (2004): Liz produces blue flames, which inexplicably change to orange in the second film.
• Hocus Pocus: The candle that brings the sisters Back from the Dead has a black flame.
• Saga Of The Phoenix: The main villainess known as the Hell Concubine can project green flames as an attack.
• Shin Godzilla: When Godzilla first uses his atomic breath, it appears as normal orange flames that incinerate downtown Tokyo, but then he begins focusing it in his mouth, turning it blue and laser-like.
• Warlock (1989): When the titular villain is nearby, ordinary fire becomes an eerie shade of blue.
• War God: The heroine is at a barbecue party in the dead of night with a bunch of her friends when the aliens decide to abduct her. The fire seems to react to the Martian saucer's presence by suddenly changing colors, from red to yellow and green and white at random.

Literature

• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Lords' Fire is blue; fire from the Illearth Stone is Green. Covenant's ring throws silver fire.
• Codex Alera: High Lords tend to light their swords on fire which burn in the same colors as their family crest. Octavian is baffled as to how this works and can only make his sword burn with normal red flame^note  Which, appropriately enough, is one of his family's colors, though he later figures it out. Kitai can do azure and purple and the Vord Queen's are bright green.
• Cthulhu Mythos: Two minor Great Old Ones/Outer Gods are Tulzscha and Aphoom-Zhah, who appear as "sickly green" and gray flames respectively. Both of them are freezing cold rather than burning hot, to further heighten their unnatural nature.
• Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate:
  • The fire that Dennagon breathes is green.
  • Drekkenoth is made out of black fire.
• Firebird Trilogy: The flames in Firebird's mind (It Makes Sense in Context) burn black, indicating the fact that they are a literalization of personal sin/evil.
• Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The ember of Hoole is different from the other volcanic embers because it burns with a green ring around a blue center.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:
    • Hermione is seen making "bluebell" flames several times, an action she repeats in later installments of the series.
    • One of the obstacles protecting the titular stone involved a chamber blocked with purple fire at one exit and black fire at the other.
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
    • Floo Powder, first seen in this volume and used throughout the series afterwards, always produces a green flame.
    • The black candles at Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday party burn with blue flames.
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:
    • At the Quidditch World Cup, Harry, Ron, and Hermione pass by a trio of African wizards cooking a rabbit over bright purple flames.
    • The title object contains blue-white flames, which turn bright red when a name is placed into it and when a name is regurgitated as a chosen champion in the Triwizard Tournament.
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:
    • During the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, the Death Eater Antonin Dolohov cast a curse that manifested as a streak of purple flame. While the true nature of the spell is unknown, it caused Hermione Granger extensive internal injuries, and apparently didn’t kill her only because Dolohov was unable to say the incantation out loud.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
    • When Dumbledore's body is laid upon a slab of white marble, it is engulfed in flames of the same color, which eventually die down when the slab is reformed into a marble tomb.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
    • Mr. Weasley has outfitted Hagrid's flying motorcycle with several new features. While whisking Harry away from pursuing Death Eaters, Hagrid activates the dragonfire accelerator, which causes blue-white flames to erupt from the tailpipe.
    • In their final climactic confrontation, the collision of Voldemort's Killing Curse and Harry's Disarming Charm produces a burst of golden flames at the center of their dueling space.
  • The Swedish Short-Snout (one of the ten pure breeds of dragon) breathes fire of a brilliant blue color, according to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
• The Mortal Instruments: Magnus Bane' signature attack is blue fire.
• The Name of the Wind:
  • One of the warning signs that The Dreaded Chandrian are near is that ordinary flames turn blue. It's mentioned in a creepy children's song about them:
    When the hearthfire turns to blue,
    What to do? What to do?
    Run outside. Run and hide.
  • It's trivial for Arcanists to invoke the trope as an alchemical novelty — one makes blue-burning candles with chemical additives, and another has built a whole collection of lamps in different colours in his quest to create an ever-burning one.
• The Night of Wishes: Beelzebub and Tyrannia create a bowl from cold green fire.
• Prince Caspian: Although not actually seen, one part of an attempted ritual to resurrect the White Witch (iconic villain from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) was to "prepare the blue fire".
• Red Nails: In this Conan the Barbarian story, the candles' flames are not mentioned, but their smoke is green.
• Redwall: Seers and sorcerers often dance and chant while casting various powders into fires to burn in different colors, increasing the fear they cause in assembled Mooks.
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: Uses this trope briefly, after the Mariner shoots the albatross and brings a curse down on his ship.
  About, about, in reel and rout
  The death-fires danced at night;
  The water, like a witch's oils,
  Burnt green, and blue and white.
• Royal Assassin: Chade chemically treats all the torches and firewood in Buckkeep Castle to make them burn blue. Since this is considered an evil omen and occurs during Regal's coronation, it causes a panic.
• In The Secrets of Droon, magic-users can shoot sparks from their hands, with color determined by alignment. Good wizards like Galen can shoot blue sparks, Eric Hinkle has blue but they later change to silver, and evil sorcerers and witches shoot red sparks. Keeah, due to having both types of magic in her, creates purple sparks when she puts both hands together.
• Septimus Heap: A BoneFyre has purple flames.
• Shannara: Witchfire is green.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Wildfire burns green.
  • Dragons come in a variety of colors, both their scales and dragonfires.
    • Daenerys' chief dragon, Drogon, breathes black fire shot with red. The only other dragon described to have such fire is Balerion, the famed dragon ridden by Aegon the Conqueror, whose dragonfire was said to be "black, with swirls of red". It could melt steel, and was used to reforge thousands of swords into the Iron Throne. As a result, many have called Drogon to be the second coming of Balerion.
    • Tessarion, the dragon ridden by Daeron Targaryen, breathed cobalt blue fire.
    • Quicksilver, the dragon ridden by Aenys I, breathed pale white fire.
• Son of a Liche: Jynn identifies that undead horde as belonging to his father by their use of his trademarked emerald and violet Shadowflame, apparently elemental darkness that consumes the surrounding shadows so it seems to glow.
• Stardust: One witch recognizes the fire of another, because witches' fires burn strange colors.
• Tolkien's Legendarium: Gandalf often creates multicolored fire, especially in The Hobbit.
• The Twilight Saga: At several points a fire is lit using driftwood, and it's noted that the salt in the wood effects the color of the flame.
• Wolf's Honour: In this Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novel, the Thirteenth Company's fire burns blue on the shadow planet. It also doesn't make any noise or give off any smoke.

Live-Action TV

• Breaking Bad: The pilot episode has Walt do this in his chemistry class.
• Chicago Fire: The lab fire in "Infection, Part 1" eventually turns a sickly blue-green, after starting out a more mundane yellow-orange.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Wildfire is an alchemically-produced analogue of Real Life Greek fire that burns bright green.
  • Blue fire is breathed by Viserion as a Wight Dragon when he attacks the Wall.
• GARO: Makai Knights wield Madou Lighters that can be any color from green, blue, red etc. They're primarily used to identify Horror-possessed humans and can also burn them.
• Heroes: Has two flamethrowers: Meredith with red fire, Flint with blue fire.
• Kamen Rider:
  • In Kamen Rider 555, when Orphnochs die, it involves blue flames (presumably relating to Hitodama Light) and their bodies crumbling to dust. Likewise, in Kamen Rider Kabuto, Worms die with green flames.
  • Kamen Rider Double: Kamen Rider Eternal generates blue flames for some of his special attacks, including his Rider Kick. His own Direct to Video movie dubbed this form "Blue Flare" and revealed that it's Eternal's true form, achieved because of Katsumi Daido's compatibility with the Eternal Memory, while past users could only manifest an incomplete "Red Flare" form.
• The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nóg:
  • Tyrune, the Three-Headed Hydra of Temra, breathes different-colored fireballs from each head; blue from the left, green from the right, and orange from the center.
  • After getting his armor upgraded, Rohan is also given the Dragon Torch, a proto-flamethrower which can shoot blue-green flames long distances.
• Sleepy Hollow featured an early form of napalm, described in dialogue as Greek Fire. Actual napalm burns a fairly mundane reddish-orange. This stuff must have had something in it napalm doesn't, as it burned bright blue like isopropyl alcohol. Maybe that was the Byzantines' secret?
• Star Trek: Plasma fires, such as from burning polyduranide, are a bright green. Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Enterprise used them as part of the plot, so there's plenty of visuals.

Music

• Symbolic fire, but it still counts, sort of: In the OneRepublic song "Apologize", the singer once "loved with a fire red, now it's turning blue", to represent his love growing colder as a result of "you" wronging him.

Mythology

• In Anglo-American folklore, flames burning blue indicate that something unnatural/supernatural (and typically evil) is nearby. Not often given that explicit meaning in modern works, but it crops up in The Devil and Daniel Webster, and more recently in the works of John Allison and John Bellairs.
• In Japanese myth, a blue flame (hitodama) is someone's spirit.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The faerie fire spell can create a non-combustible fire of different colors. Always in D&D, at least two spells use a black fire made of necromantic energy. Both can burn creatures immune to normal fire, but only affect living.
  • The Cold Flames that burn around a rimefire eidolon's form are a bright blue-white in color.
  • Greyhawk: The ritual spell rain of colorless rire (never given in stats) utterly destroyed the Suel Imperium.
  • Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen: Cataclysmic fire is a supernatural flame with necromantic properties which burns bright purple.
• Exalted has this all over the place. Pyre-flame, the fire of the underworld, is a sickly green and behaves like a viscous liquid; Ligier, the Green Sun of Malfeas, is also that color; and Fire-Aspected Terrestrials often have multi-colored animas.
• Princess: The Hopeful: Many Fuoco Charms allow a Princess to create flames fueled by the love she feels for another. While romantic love produces the standard reddish-orange, other forms of love will result in Technicolor Fire (flames created from familial love are blue or purple, those created from friendship are white, etc).
• Warhammer: Strange-coloured flames are sometimes associated with Chaos here and in Warhammer 40,000. Tzeench daemons often tend to lob iridescent flames at their enemies, especially blue and pink ones, and it's also one of the ways the "winds of chaos"-psychic power may manifest. It should be noted that in Warhammer, at least as far as the Flames of Tzeentch are concerned, each color also has a different (and horrible) effect on whatever poor sap gets hit by it.
• The World of Darkness: Both versions of the franchise mention sickly green Balefire. In the Old World of Darkness, it's is the Wyrm-corrupted form of elemental fire, and exists in the most tainted places on Earth and in the spirit world. Evil spirits and corrupted werewolves can use it as a weapon, which mutates and taints the victim in addition to horrifically burning them. In the New World of Darkness, it's a trick to summon the fires of Hell that the Lucifuge can learn.

Video Games

• During Case 5 of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, a special kind of oil which is used to make ink and lamps and that produces a green flame when lit, becomes important evidence as it was used to make counterfeit bills and cards from a smuggling ring leader that used them to send messages to his associates, and the green flame was the way they identified the cards as real.
• Alien³ has three different flamethrower fuels: The starter red one, which produces an orange flame; the green one, which produces a more powerful green flame; and the blue one, which produces a blue flame and is the most potent weapon of the game.
• A Little To The Left has a puzzle where six matches have their heads recolored into the six colors of the rainbow. After the puzzle is done, these six matches are combined into a white-headed match that produces a rainbow flame. The next puzzle involves a set of candles, and a match that switches from having a black head that produces a normal flame, and the white head from the previous puzzle. While the normal flame melts the candles down while they're lit, the rainbow flame un-melts the candles back up.
• ANNO: Mutationem: At Freeway 42, several residents who stayed behind following the Mechanika Virus outbreak sit together by a bonfire emitting a blue flame. In the final fight, C's Draconic Abomination form as Nidhogg fires off blue flames when attacking the whole area.
• In Baldur's Gate, Karlach is usually cloaked in a faint aura of orange flame. During more intimate moments, however, her flames change to a cool blue.
• In Battle Axe, the Sorcerous Overlord main villainess' castle has purple flames in torches everywhere.
• Fireplaces appear as an obstacle in The Binding of Isaac, coming in four varieties: yellow, red, blue and purple. Red and purple flames shoot projectiles at you (purple uses homing bullets), while blue and purple flames can only be extinguished by explosions.
• Breakable, heart-containing candles and torches in the various Castlevania games burn with a variety of colors.
• City of Heroes has colour-tintable fiery auras for costume options. Of course, actual game-mechanically-useful fire effects are always standard orangey-red. The exceptions are Plasma Shield, which is blue, and Healing Flames and Cauterize, which are green. This has all changed with Issue 16, now you can recolor all of your powers however you like, including impossible black fire.
• In Command & Conquer: Generals, the Chinese "black napalm" upgrade makes all flame-based weapons more powerful and colors them purple. Likewise, the Black Hand of Nod's "Purifying Flame" upgrade in Kane's Wrath turns all of their fire weapons blue.
• When the necromancer is chosen on the character selection screen in Diablo II, he will create an illusion of blue fire around himself.
• Dark Souls: The Optional Boss of the first game, Black Dragon Kalameet, breathes black flames with a yellow outline. In the third game, several dark pyromancy spells produce black flames as well.
• Dawn of War: Some Chaos units such as the Defiler and Possessed Chaos Marines can shoot pinkish flames.
• Disgaea has this in spades. Blue fire, green fire, purple fire, purple-and-yellow fire, gold fire, and black fire are all present, and that's only the top of the list.
• Drawn to Life: The Eternal Flame can be whatever color you want it to be. This is because you're God.
• In Elden Ring, the Lands Between have a few unusual kinds of fire, including god-slaying black fire, blood-red bloodflames that cause bleeding, freezing white spiritflames, and sleep-inducing purple fire.
• Dynasty Wars has a Colour-Coded for Your Convenience example, where flaming arrows fired from enemy forces are ordinary, red fire which can damage your health, while arrows fired by your men burns blue and can only damage onscreen enemies (while ignoring you entirely).
• Eternity: The Last Unicorn have the torches in Fernsallyr Forest which burns green, emphasizing the wood's magical nature.
• The Meteor Goliath in Evolve has bright blue fire. Looks cool in a fight, not so useful for sneaking.
• Fae Farm: The Fae Fire spell creates a trio of purple flames, and the Scorched Caverns are full of blue torches.
• Fallout: Flamers emit the normal mix of yellow-orange flames, but the unique weapon Cleansing Flame from Fallout: New Vegas emits a large stream of blue-white flames.
• In Final Fantasy XII:
  • The Black Magic Spell "Ardor" is a late game fire-element spell that produces giant explosive blue flames.
  • The yellow flame of the torches adorning the walkway during the Demon Wall battle can either be turned off... or change to blue, in which case the Demon Wall will advance faster.
• In Garou: Mark of the Wolves, the currently final installment of Fatal Fury, Kain R. Heinlein wields blue flames (although, like Iori below, they appear purple in-game), not unlike the flames Orochi is supposed to possess in KOF. However, he has no known connection to the Orochi clan, instead being Marie Heinlein's younger brother, making him Geese Howard's brother-in-law and Rock's uncle.
• Shang Guan-jin from The Gladiator, the Magic Knight character, can conjure blue flames as a projectile-based attack.
• Hades in Hero of Sparta, as the last boss, attacks you with a burning axe coated in light blue flames.
• The King of Fighters:
  • Aside from Kyo Kusanagi's "normal" red flames (more of an orange hue in-game), we have Iori's cursed purple flames, Ash's waxy green flames, and Nameless' blood-red flames.
  • The lore and official sources make the matter of Iori's flames somewhat confusing. The Yasakani clan originally wielded crimson flames much like the Kusanagi until their jealousy over the Kusanagi's fame (and their lack of recognition) led them to strike a deal with Orochi and gain the entity's power — though not without great cost to the clan, which renamed themselves the Yagami. Orochi's cursed flames are officially said to be blue, so presumably the purple color comes from the mix of its flames with the Yasakani's. However, the team stories featuring Iori describe his flames as blue for most installments, only switching to purple around the time of XII. In-game, Iori's flames have always been purple. Orochi Chris (see below) doesn't help matters, since he also possesses purple flames even though there's no indication he had access to any other forms of fire besides Orochi's.
  • Evil Ash in XIII uses black flames, which were originally going to be given to Orochi Chris as far back as in KOF '97 (since that didn't work too well when placed up against the dark backdrop of the Orochi Team's arena(s), Orochi Chris ended up with purple flames like Iori). They appear to be manifested from the combination of Ash's flames and Saiki's ink, and are apparently powerful enough to burn through time itself, a concept so overpowered K' can't help but snark about it in his win quote.
• The flamethrower weapon in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 normally shoots normal orange fire, but its upgraded version shoots more powerful blue flames.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time:
    • Blue Fire which, naturally was cold fire used to melt the hot red ice.
    • The four Poe sisters in the Forest Temple each have a different colored flame in their torches (which matches their eyes/hair).
    • In the ending sequence, a fire appears with all the sages signature colors, as if the graphics designer was showing off.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games have the villains lighting up the three Flames of Sorrow, Destruction and Despair.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Both the torches around Lorule Castle and Yuga's staff burn cyan, magenta, and yellow flames, all three colors being present at once. This is more clear in Yuga's concept art.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
    • The four Champions, as well as King Rhoam in his true form, appear surrounded by bluish-green hitodama lights.
    • The Sheikah Labs are powered with blue fire that needs to be carried over by torches.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man & Bass gives us Burner Man, whose fires have a green hue due to the special chemicals used to produce them.
  • Mega Man X2 features Flame Stag, who normally emits red flames, but they eventually become blue to show that he has, ironically, Turned Red.
• Metroplexity uses green fire for many Etheric attacks, especially those associated with The Herald Of Fire.
• The Minecraft 1.16 Nether Update added Soul Fire, created when Soul Soil is ignited, which has blue-coloured flames (and so do Soul Fire Torches and Soul Fire Lanterns, which are created using Soul Soil). Outside of the aesthetic difference from regular fire, it's also dimmer (having a light level of 10 versus 14) and burns you more painfully if you step in it (by two hit-points per second versus one).
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter: World:
    • Lunastra's fire attacks leave behind trails of blue flames.
    • In Iceborne, if Fatalis reaches the third stage of the fight without having its head broken, its flames will turn blue. In this state, the flames are so devastating that they are perfectly capable of one-shotting hunters even through Fireproof Mantles.
  • Magnamalo from Monster Hunter: Rise produces a unique explosive gas that ignites into sinister purple flames dubbed "hellfire".
• In the Mortal Kombat series, one of Johnny Cage's signature moves is a green fireball. It is possible, however, that this attack isn't a fireball at all; prior to Mortal Kombat 9 and Mortal Kombat X settling on calling it a Forceball, several installments named it Plasmic Bolt. Furthermore, the green energy Johnny uses for his attacks has none of the properties of fire (not even in a Faux Flame manner), with his projectiles instead tending to splatter like paint upon contact.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King, a Prequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, the second boss is a giant snake that exhales purple flame as one of its attacks.
• Inverted in Pencil Whipped, a game whose graphics looks like pencil art coming to life. Including the flames, who's burning in black and white. Unfortunately, they could hurt you, and there's no way of telling they're flames until you touched one.
• Persona:
  • Persona 4 has you summoning your Personas by breaking a card (as if it was made of glass or something) that is surrounded by blue flames. Also, higher level Mudo spells invoke giant runes on the floor surrounding the target as purple fire emerges from each corner of the invocation site. Hama spells create white flames, instead. The recurring phallus demon Mara also has a unique spell in Persona 3 named Maralagidyne, which is a higher level version of the fire spell Maragidyne which attacks enemies with green flames instead of red ones. The spell Megidolaon also creates a giant white-bluish fiery explosion.
  • Blue flames are a major visual motif throughout Persona 5. In the opening minutes, an otherworldly blue flame can be seen in the distance once time stops as the protagonist arrives in Shibuya. Each protagonist bursts into blue flame when they first awaken to their Persona. And, the eponymous Persona Guardian Entities are now covered in blue flame when they are summoned.
• Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: Using plant food on a Torchwood makes its flame turns blue and greatly increases the damage of peas passing through it.
• Pokémon:
  • Many Dragon-type moves look like odd-colored — green, magenta, and even grey — fire.
  • Sacred Fire, the Signature Move of Ho-Oh, was given a blue/purple color starting with Diamond and Pearl.
  • Likewise, Blue Flare, Reshiram's signature move, is colored blue as well. Interestingly, both Reshiram and Ho-Oh are tied for the highest base stat total of Fire-type Pokémon (Arceus with a Flame Plate excluded).
  • Mega Charizard X has blue fire burning from its mouth and tail.
  • A couple of Fire-type Pokémon's Shiny colors may naturally change their flames' colors as well. Ponyta gets a nice blue mane, while its evolved form Rapidash has gray flames; Magcargo has a purple-and-yellow flame coming out of its shell; Magmar, Magmortar and Moltres are covered in pink fire; and Emboar sports a blue mane.
  • Ghost-type Pokémon with fire in their design often have blue-purplish flame, such as the Litwick line, Ceruledge (both being actual Ghost/Fire type) and Greavard (not Fire type but has a candle on its head). Litwick line's shinies actually avert this by having orange fire.
• The Quest for Glory series:
  • The Paladin's flaming sword burns with a blue flame in the VGA games and Quest for Glory V. In the original EGA version of Quest for Glory II it burns with red flame.
  • The Hero carries a torch with him throughout Quest for Glory IV that burns with an unnatural green light.
• In the fire-themed segment of Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches, you must gather chemicals which, when tossed into a fire, will cause sparks of various colors to appear.
• Ridgeside Village: The sources of the corruption in the Spirit Realm are the purple flames burning on the top of its hills; the Farmer must extinguish them to cleanse it.
• Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song has a Fire elemental spell which shields the party with glowing blue flames.
• RuneScape: Some of the rewards in the treasure trails are special lighters that can be used in normal logs to burn them and produce colored fire, as opposed to the normal orange fire. The only difference besides aesthetics is that, if you use one, you're guaranteed to light the log on fire on your first try.
• In Secret of Mana, there is a very powerful spell called "Burst", which produces fiery blue explosions. Oddly enough, it is not gained from the Elemental Spirit of Fire, Salamander, but Dryad, the Tree/Nature Spirit.
• Hang Castle and Mystic Mansion of Sonic Heroes have both red and blue torches. Team Chaotix's normal mission in Mystic Mansion involves putting out the red ones, while their second mission is to put out the harder-to-find blue ones.
• Protoss buildings in Starcraft burn with a blue-white flame when damaged, which may be based on the fact that hydrogen burns with a blue flame.
• Street Fighter:
  • The Hadoken. Normally, these appear to be blue-white balls of fire (produced by the user's Ki Manipulation abilities), but usually have no burning properties. However, with Super Street Fighter II, Capcom said "Sure, Why Not?" to a glitch that occasionally made a Hadoken come out red by giving Ryu a reddish fireball (Shakunetsu Hadoken) that did burn.
  • M. Bison's various Psycho Power-fueled attacks, such as the Psycho Crusher, are able to burn their victims with blue (later purple) flames. Soul Power, utilized by Rose and Menat, can do the same, which is explained by Psycho Power — or at least the version utilized by Bison and other like-minded individuals — being a corrupted form of Soul Power. By contrast, Soul Power typically has a light blue coloration when manifested.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • In some games (and in Super Smash Bros.), Luigi's fireballs are green to set them apart from Mario's red.
  • In Super Mario 64, the final fight with Bowser has him spewing blue flames that actively follow Mario around.
  • To emphasize the Shadow Queen's sheer demonic power before the final battle in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, every candle in the final boss chamber is put out during her summoning and spontaneously light again with black flames. After her defeat, the black flames on all the candles are put out and reignited again with normal flames.
  • In Bowser's Inside Story, Dark Bowser is naturally associated with black and blue fire.
  • Dreamy Bowser in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team breathes rainbow-coloured fire. Smoldergeists from the same game are on fire, and have purple flames.
  • Super Mario 3D World has blue lava in some levels, with its own blue-colored Lava Bubbles (living fireballs).
• Team Fortress 2:
  • When a member of the BLU team is on fire, he has blue little effects around him to more easily show which team he's on and expose Spies.
  • There are many magic spells you can apply to items and weapons during Halloween, one of which naturally allows you to change the color of the Flamethrowers' fire.
• Terraria:
  • Cursed Flames and related items/debuffs are an insidious green, and cannot be extinguished by diving into water.
  • Wearing the Frost armor will add a Frostburn effect to your melee and ranged weapons, making them covered with blue Cold Flames.
  • The Goblin Summoner drops Shadowflame weapons, which have purple fire.
  • Peace Candles have pink flames, and Water Candles have blue flames.
  • You can also craft torches of many different colors using gems or one of a handful of other ingredients, and Demon Torches can be found in the Underworld.
  • While not in the vanilla game, in the Calamity Mod, the Meowthrower is basically a Meowmere themed flamethrower^note (granted, unlike the Meowmere, the Meowthrower drops from the Wall of Flesh, not the Moon Lord, and as such, is substantially weaker than it) which shoots blue and pink flames that cause the On Fire! and Frostburn debuffs; in addition to that, when bursting into flames upon contact with an enemy, they make meowing sound effects.
  • There are other flamethrowers in the mod that use this trope, such as the Elemental Eruption and Photoviscerator (both of which require the Meowthrower to be crafted).
• Them's Fightin' Herds: The longma race's flaming manes and tails are usually warm colors, but Baihe's fire is green. Tianhuo can also count with some of her Palette Swaps.
• Total War: Warhammer III: Tzeentch's minions use fire in vivid blues and pinks are projectile attacks. This is displayed in a particularly vivid manner by the Flamers, daemons that serve as living flamethrowers and spew gouts of bright blue fire.
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has resin that burns a brilliant blue. So brilliant, in fact, every other light source in the area immediately disappears for dramatic effect once the stuff ignites.
• Valkyria Chronicles: The flamethrowers used by Elite Troopers spray blue flame, supposedly because the fuel is atomized Ragnite. The type of flamethrowers that inflict debuffs shoot purple flames instead. Also, the titular Valkyria are surrounded by an aura of blue flames when their powers are active.
• Warframe: Fire-based weapons and Warframe powers produce flames of the player's chosen energy color, be it red, blue, hot pink, or pitch black.
• World of Warcraft: Fel (demonic) fire is usually green, shadowflame is a blackish-purple and void flames originating from the Sha are black.
• Yokai Hunter Shintaro have various yokai using colourful flames as their attacks. The Final Boss, the King of Yokai, Shuten dōji notably can spam purple flames all over the arena that deals massive damage.

Web Comics

• Far Out There: whatever the security system used to dispose of some intruders did so in the form of light blue flames.
• Homestuck: First Guardian powers are associated with bright green energy, and this includes fires that they create; this also extends to characters who gain First Guardian powers secondarily, such as Jade and Bec Noir. In Act 5, most of the Land of Wind and Shade becomes covered in green firestorms when Bec Noir sets its oceans of tar alight until John blows out the fires with his wind powers.
• My Delirium Alcazar: In the dream all fire is green, signifying the otherworldness of the setting.
• Tower of God: Yeon Ehwa is a flame user with lightning blue, pink, and violet flames.
• unOrdinary: Ezra can emit and control magenta fire, an ability he calls "Shadow Flame".
• Unsounded: Blue and teal fire is a sign the khert is on fire, and is a cold spectral flame that can be safely walked through.

Web Original

• Dreamscape: The Master of the Dammed's minotaurs had a small blue flame floating above their heads.
• Mystery Skulls Animated: Lewis, a ghost with fire powers, summons and uses bright pink supernatural fire, which also happens to fit neatly into his Color Motif.
• RWBY: Whenever one of the Maidens tap into their powers, it is represented by their Aura forming flames around their eyes. Most of the Maidens seen onscreen have had red or orange Auras, though Fria's is an icy blue and her successor Penny's is emerald green.
• Seldnac'Rae: The flames on a Seldnac's ears can be any color, and once the Seldnac reaches level 100, they may even have a rainbow effect filtering through.
• Each of the rings of Hell in Helluva Boss appears to be home to a different brand of fire, prominently green in Greed and blue in Lust. They feature heavily in the powers of each sin's ruling demon.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra:
  • Blue fire signifies a higher firebending power, though only Azula has been demonstrated using it. This could actually be a case of Shown Their Work, because the hotter parts of a regular fire are, you guessed it, blue.^note This could also be a play on her name - similar to the Spanish word for blue - as well as a way of distinguishing her flames when she battles against Zuko.
  • Long Feng's office has a fireplace with crystals burning with green flames.
  • The dragons Ran and Shaw breath fire which includes flames of all the colors.◊ In Smoke and Shadow, Zuko is shown to be able to produce a similar fire.
  • A Bhanti Fire Sage uses a firebending technique akin to healing after Korra has been rendered amnesiac and weak following possession by a dark spirit. It glows with a white and gold light, noticeably far brighter than the usual flames seen in either series.
• Danny Phantom:
  • Skulker's "hair" (On his techno-exosuit. His actual form is bald) consists of green flames.
  • Likewise, Dan Phantom, Danny's evil future self, has white fire for hair as well.
  • There's also Ember McClain's blue flaming hair.
  • And what passes for the DP equivalent of Pandora has pink flame hair. It's pretty safe to say nearly half the ghosts you see in the series have colorful fiery hair.
• Dragons: Riders of Berk: While most fire-breathing dragons produce the expected orange-yellow flames, a few have unique colors. Razorwhips and Shellfires have blue fire, while Cavern Crashers have green fire. Fishlegs once experimented with different materials for Meatlug's lava blast, producing green, blue, and purple lava.
• Elena of Avalor: Xotep is a volcano with blue lava.
• G.I. Joe: Renegades: Features Firefly, whose incendiary bombs explode and burn with blue flame, but then turn orange after a moment. As with the firebending examples above, this could be a case of Shown Their Work.
• Godzilla: The Series: Godzilla's atomic heat ray appears visually to be a stream of green fire, as opposed to the usual Godzilla color of blue (although the revived Cyber-Godzilla gets this color).
• Jimmy Two-Shoes: The Misery Inc. factory spews green fire.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The color of the fire a dragon breathes is often unique to the individual, although most breathe traditional yellow flames.
    • Spike breathes green fire, which is mostly used to teleport scrolls to and from Princess Celestia but can also burn things in the usual way. He breathes a more traditional orange fire in "Equestria Games", but it does not show up in other episodes.
    • Among other dragons, Ember breathes bright magenta flames, Smolder's fiery breath is yellow with a blue-and-pink core, Sludge's is magenta with a yellow core, and an unnamed dragon from "Dragon Quest" is seen breathing light blue flames.
  • Queen Chrysalis' magic is often associated with green fire, as an extension of the show using vivid green effects to symbolize evil magic.
  • When kirin are overtaken by their anger and transform into nirik, their manes and tails transform into blazing blue-and-red flames.
• The Owl House: In "Adventures in the Elements", Amity spends the episode learning how to do a fire spell. Her fire comes out pink, compared to orange when Eda and Luz (using the wand) cast the same spell.
• Steven Universe: Amethyst is capable of creating purple flames in her whips.

Real Life

• Wal-Mart sells a powder called Funky Flames that will do this. If you throw a packet of it in your fire, it'll turn the flames blue/green/purple. It's great at campouts.
• There are also pine cones sold that turn your fire a variety of colors.
• Duralogs burn green.
• Gas stoves and Bunsen burners draw in extra oxygen via tubes around the base of the flames. This makes the fire burn more efficiently with less soot, which means that the amount of heat glow (or, more correctly, blackbody radiation) emitted by the flame is less, and the blue light from the chemical reactions going on in the flame is brighter. A common misconception is that the blue color comes directly from the increased heat of the flame. While it is true that the flame is hotter, it isn't hot enough to emit blue light simply from heat glow, which would require temperatures in excess of 10,000 Kelvin.
• Chlorine Trifluoride burns a bright white flame, and can set almost anything on fire.
• Those blowtorch cigarette lighters with a thin little copper wire that turns the flame green.
• Chemistry teachers will often perform this trick in a lab, to teach students about the structure of atoms and what happens if you get their electrons all excited (in Layman's Terms, the electrons basically start jumping up and down, releasing photons of the appropriate color).
  • Years of fascinated students chucking various chemicals into the top and base of a Bunsen can cause it to be discolored for years. Most commonly it's green from all the copper compounds (copper being the most readily available impressive color-burning ion available in most chemistry experiments).
  • Potassium, whose flames are purple.
  • Magnesium burns a dazzling white.
  • Rubidium and caesium, in particular, are named after their respective flame colours, respectively ruby red and blue.
  • Fireworks make use of this principle to produce their colors.
• Some flames seen in a forge will be pink. These are the hottest.
• Boric acid is a fairly easy and non-toxic way of producing green fire.
• As noted above some rocket ships burn so bright that part of the flame appears to be invisible due it emitting ultraviolet light which can not be seen by a human eye.
• Fuel used by Formula One racing cars also has a chance to burn invisibly. This has proven tragic in some cases where racers, such as Niki Lauda, had accidents and were burning alive yet nobody notices that they are in fact on fire. Lauda barely survived but ended up disfigured for the rest of his life.
• Generally, fire is only orange when carbon particulates are produced, which only happens during the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing compounds. Most elements and inorganic compounds burn blue.
  • Many people seem to have a misconception that methane always burns blue, which it does not under normal conditions. In most situations methane does not combust completely, and as it is a carbon-containing compound this means elemental carbon is produced and it burns with a yellow/orange flame. However, gas powered appliances such as gas cookers are optimised for complete combustion as this is more fuel-efficient, which means that no elemental carbon is formed and the flame produced is blue.
• The Indonesian volcano Kawah Ijen spews lava with blue flames due to high sulfur levels (sulfur burns blue).

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