Also, the repeatling pattern alphabetcanary found is most definitely 100% there. It's going one direction in the inner ring and the opposite direction in the outer. So at the very least, the lengths of the even flames do not encode information. The colors still could, but that changes your count..., something to consider.
I agree that pattern alphabetcanary found changes everything. Since we are looking for vanity address, the pattern could not be part of the key unless we imagine that author developed special software that would make a key that hashes to 1FLAME, and in the same time puts a pattern inside the key, which is a borderline impossible regarding the length of the pattern. Conclusion is that pattern breaks the reading of the flames, and understanding the pattern is necessary to understand how the flames should be read. Or the pattern could be the actual reading and everything else in the flames is not important, which doesn't seem likely but is possible. In any case IMHO the flames are unusable until we understand why the pattern is there and what does it represent.