FIRE! advanced techniques

heyho creativecow community

i've been working with AE since several years, but i mostly used
clips + standard fx / sets without much real knowledge of this program.

now its time to change that :D

i got a little videoproject and the very first thing i wanna do,
is settings things on fire ... but i need help :(

i've watched maybe 20 tutorials about fire for AE,
but - well i need some advanced-user-tricks.
lets sketch my problem as exactly as possible:

fire isnt that difficult, but i want to set a logo on fire
quite similar to blizzards very well attempt with the D3 logo:






but lets forget the logo and just take a letter,
which is quite more challenging, because we have round curves,
for example the letter B

imagine this letter is made of wood, someone overflows it
with gasoline and lights a match:
http://www.thirdmenson.com/3dstore/index.php/AE-Projects/Realistic-Text-on-...

this looks absolutely stunning and this is exactly what im looking for.
i know, this video isn't done with AE alone (maya or something),
and it doesnt need to be that perfect, but nonetheless this
is what i'm looking for.

has someone an idea or tutorial link on how to manage that effect?
i got time to learn but im still kinda newbie in AE,
so please describe as exactly as possible, what to do.

thanks in advice