The colour variable changes the colour effect on the particles, the colour change variable determines how much to chang in colour.
I was first experimenting with creating fire by stamping squares, then I made this with clones. Feel free to use in you project, but give credit to this project. You can also remix this project. To do that, just export the fire sprite. You can also place more fires in you project like me, because they don't interfere with each other. An example use: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/588220585/