This image has not been manipulated at all, except to desaturate the surrounding flames to make the figure stand out.
Flames are amazing, elegant and eerily graphic. Below are four images of the same log as it burned. In some the log shows at a different angle, but it is still the same log. Then the four following profiles are the same four images rotated 90 degrees -- again, no manipulation, just what the flames created. (Except I added an ear to the Elf profile, a fragment from another flame image.)