system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is fire the color it is?

I know that if you burn certain elements it can make fire a number of colors, but why is it normally the orangeish-yellow color we know it as?
gpt
So, as you expect, the variety of fuel-specific colours such as the blue from butane or green from copper and the standard flame orange are formed by different processes.

In one hand you have excitation of bound electrons in ions and atoms and molecules that produce spectral lines. 

The other process that produces the orange/yellow colours is black body radiation. What happens is little particles of soot in the flame get heated to 1000+C and emit the black body colour appropriate for their temperature.

There are some easy tests that provide evidence in support of this. A standard bunsen burner will have a blue flame with the oxygen valve open. However, if you shut the valve, the combustion is no longer complete meaning that more soot is left unburned and you get the standard yellow.

If you hold something (non-flammable) in the yellow flame from a bunsen burner you will find yourself collecting a layer of soot. If you repeat this with the blue flame you won't find the same soot.