Does light make fire colder?

Tell your brother that he is a certifiable idiot.

Tell your brother that he is a certifiable idiot.

Light waves have nothing to do with the heat component of fire

Light waves have nothing to do with the heat component of fire

No...what is going on is that your iris (the colored part of the eye) of your eye is dilated more in dark conditions. A more dilated iris opens up more area of your eye to transmit light to the retina through the puipil (the black image on your eye). More light in the eye makes things seem to look brighter...even if the same light that had otherwise been emitted by it is the same (in the absolute sense). Broad daylight simply outshines the fire, and when you look at daytime scenes, your iris closes and makes your pupil tiny, so less light reaches your retina from the dimmer objects. This is exactly why you cannot see the stars in the daytime, and exactly why, even in the Apollo photographs why you cannot see stars in the lunar daytime. Even when taking photos of the fire in dark conditions or broad daylight...the camera uses an iris just like your eye does (either that or exposure time)...to control the exposure, so bright conditions expose the film (or alternative) to proportionally less light. Either way, your imaging device usually adjusts so that the brightest part of the image is nearly the same brightness level (no matter what its actual brightness may be).