How to create a specific burning circle ?

Development Rendering
1

I would like to create a burning circle like the one in the center of this image:

But the real issue I’m having is the fire it self; All the tutorials I’m looking are creating fire with some sort of ‘smoke cloud’,
and I’m looking for a more (in my opinion) realistic fire - which is kind of a ‘swirly’ burning smoke.

How would I go about creating such an effect? Does anyone have any links or guides that may give me a direction?

2

I’d create or find an animated fire texture that tiles horizontally, and tile it across a long thin strip of geometry made up of many segments. Use your 3d modeling application to bend the strip into a circle. Something like the bend modifier in 3DS Max would achieve this result easily. Most 3d applications should be able to do this.