Fire?? this should be grey!! its the thing they use to put inside the cannon!! if it was fire, there wouldn't be ropes in the middle, and you should have painted it from light to dark
That's some evil sun-burn this poor sap has.
That's no staff he's carrying gents, he's part of a canon crew. That thing is used to swab out the canon's bore!! That's probably why it doesn't look like fire at all (and why there's rope in themiddle of it!).