Your post processing method put some...bah, I dunno what it's called...areas of the histogram where you have extreme local contrast, the histogram becomes to extremely stretched from low to high pixels. Specifically around the edges of the fire. Basically, the local contrast was pushed beyond what it was able to handle.

A well conducted shot though. Curious how you preplan your settings for a shot like this? Clearly a high shutter speed.

I do appreciate the feedback, although this shot was not planned and it was during a fire practice session in the middle of the night. Beyond an insanely high shutter speed, it was taken sort of off the cuff since we were doing fire breathing routines back and forth. 90% of my photography (even business related) is for the most part live shot with the exception of some model photography.

Ah ok, so you didn't put Photoshop to this at all then? =)

Just a quick run through lightroom but the actual exposure itself is due to the original shot, as minimal amount of editing as possible.