Yeah I know what you mean, I have never come across this environmental effect. I am basically trying this tutorial: http://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/explore2/ You'll be able to see what I'm looking for from the pics hopefully.
I found a nice tutorial online, thought I'd try it, but it requires a 'combustion' environmental effect, and I can only find fire effect, fog, volume fog and volume light in the rollout. I tried Max 8 and 2011, neither seem to have it. :( What gives?