system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What am I seeing when I look at fire?

What makes up the yellow/red/orange flames I see? I was told once they are excited photons?  Does the heat they emit correlate to the wave length of light they reflect into my eye.
gpt
You are seeing soot that is hot enough that it is less dense than the air around it and therefore rises through it. The makeup of that soot changes depending on what you are burning, which is why some things burn different colors.

The reason something burns different colors has to do with how many energy levels the electron falls when it return from the excited state which was caused by the heat.

So yes, you are seeing photons, but explaining it that way is about as good as saying that you're seeing light. It's would be worse than telling someone that plants make food from the sun and not explaining anything passed that.