Particles are also the base for fire and smoke, and you can create these effects and preview them in real time in the 3D View (remember that high-resolution simulations will slow down your computer a lot). You can adjust a lot of parameters for these effects, and you can control how the fire and smoke behave as well as how they are rendered.
A quick way to create a fire simulation is to select an object and, in the Object Menu of the 3D View header, look for Quick Effects and click Quick Smoke. Press Alt + A to play the animation and see what happens. You’ll need to make additional adjustments to get the simulation to render nicely, but this is a good starting point.
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