I didn't try with objects but can't you shrink the fire, blueprint it and then struck it even more?
I think you can, I'll have to try it once I peel my eyes open, but I'm also 99% sure the particle effects are tied to the scale of the model. That's how we can scale down the fire to fit in a chimney and not have the smoke going through the sides of the chimney, but also means in this case it would be scaled too small to even see the smoke.