Enable Fire&Smoke - global setting that allow you temporary disable all F&S components.
Presets - open/close presets panel.
Add Preset - adds your settings to a preset, the currently selected frame be drawn as the preset thumbnail. All information including color gradient will be stored in the preset for later usage. You can also store only a gradient in a preset using appropriate button from gradient tab.

This Tab contains all particle settings.
Emission Weightmap - your emitter may be weightmapped to specify areas where emission should be greater or smaller. Weightmap value <0 - no emission from this area. Near 1 - max emission.
Weight Cut off - if checked weight map will be treated as a two values only rather than smooth full range from -100% to +100%. It allows you to drastically cut off emission area on a smooth weightmap.
Propagation [FRAMES] - allows to extend emission area over the desired time on a weightmap. Emission starts on the area where weightmap is near 100% and propagates in time to finally extend to whole object.

Birth Rate [PARTICLES/FRAME]- how many new particles should be emitted in every frame.
Life Span [FRAMES] - time in frames how long particle will live.
Life Span Variations [%] - to achieve more realistic look particle life is randomized and may vary in this range.
Max Speed - this setting allow you to slow down particles that twirls too fast. This percentage setting is linked with 'Heat Power'. Greater 'Heat Power' automatically allow greater maximal speed so you don't need to adjust this setting after you change 'Heat Power'. If you think your particles swirl to slow adjust this setting to 200% or more and watch the changes.
Inertness [%] - the greater the particle will be heavier. It will be more difficult to speed it up or to change its direction.
Get Velocity from Emitter [%] - transfers part of emitter's velocity (energy) to particle.
Appear [FRAMES] - when new particle is created it appears in particular position suddenly. This setting allows you to smooth the appearing process. Particle will fade in smoothly during desired period of time. In most cases appearing is very fast process this is why you can specify time in frames.
Dissolve [%]- It is opposite setting to above one. It will fade out particles in the percent of its life. For instance if particle lives 30 frames and dissolve is set to 33% it would fade out in latest 10 frames of its life to smoothly disappear. Dissolve is not as critical setting as appear one and there is no need to set it's duration in frames.
Show LW Particles - global switch. It turns on LightWave internal particles that can be rendered with any volumetric shader like HyperVoxels. This option is automatically turned on during rendering session. Because LW particles may slow down refresh rate plugin allow you to turn them off. If you want to see HV OpenGL preview you have to turn it on.
Show Vortexes - global switch. It turns vortexes drawing in viewports for all F&S components. In the top view you can see Vortex Area (red circle), in any side view you can see Vortex Radius (red circles) and Area (red line), in any perspective view you can see only twister position (dot)
Show Wind Vector - global switch. It turns on Wind vector drawing.

Here are all controls of particle's environment. Most of them are for vortexes control.
Heat Power [%] - it is main control here. you can adjust heat of your emitter. When it is heater particles will move faster up, twisters will also move faster.
Heat Fall off -
Vortexes Probability [%] - 100% means that in each frame new random vortex will be created. It is not the same as 'birth rate' because it is randomized. 50% means that it is fifty-fifty chance of vortex creation in a frame. 200% means that up to two vortexes may be created in a frame and so on.
Spin [%] - sets rotation speed of vortexes. Note that the particle speed that is rotated by a vortex may by cut off by 'Max speed' from previous tab. You can add variations using Spin Variations setting. Spin affects only newly created vortexes. Vortex that already exists remember its spin from the frame when it was created and changed spin (envelope) will not affect it.
Vortex Area [m]- area that is affected by a vortex. Try different area sizes and watch the influence on your particles. The smaller doesn'n't mean the weaker. It has no influence on vortex radius.
Vortex Radius [m]- within this radius particles will be spun at the edge of vortex area. Particular vortex could be compared to toroid.

Propagation with Heat (up) [%]- it is multiplier of heat power for vortexes. Set over 100% force vortexes to move up faster than particles. it makes very big difference on overall smoke behavior.
Life Span [FRAMES] - it is vortex life time in frames. On the previous tab there was life span for particles, here is for vortexes. The more vortexes are currently active the longer is computing time so try to use life span as short as possible.
Move Vortexes like particles - normally vortexes don't influence on each other and go up (heat power) and follow the wind. When you check this option each vortex will interact with others and one vortex may swirl another.
Expand Particles [%] - particles get additional movement in the direction of face normals from which was emitted. Its influence grows with distance from the emitter. It allow you to create smoke that is much bigger at the top than at the bottom. It is smoke expansion. Note that expansion directions depends on the emitter shape!

4% ball	30% ball	4% two faces	30% two faces

Vect. Norm. Influence [%] - it is very similar setting to previous one but with one big difference. Particles are emitted in the directions of normals and this influence fade with distance from emitter.

5% ball	50% ball	5% two faces	50% two faces

Wind Controlled by Object - wind direction and power can be easily controlled by a Null object. Distance of the Null from the origin of the axis it is a wind power. Blue line between the Null and axis origin shows wind direction.
Manual Wind Velocity [m] - sometimes you may need to control wind power independently. If this value is non-zero it will be taken as a wind power instead of Null distance.
Local Wind - direction of the wind is computed in local object coordinates instead of globals.
Wind - the wind influence is also non linear. Wind is strongest at the top of the smoke than at the bottom of it.
Final wind value is a sum of all wind types.

Start Frame - particle computing starts from this frame. Note that you can set it to negative to get full fire/smoke in frame 0.
End Frame - end of simulation. There will be no particles after this frame.
Seed - random seed. Change this value to get different smokes with the same settings. If you think your settings are ok but you don't like the smoke - change it and recompute particle movements.
Bake Particles - it is very useful button. When you are satisfied with particles and don't want to re compute their movements next time you load your scene you can bake all already computed frames into single file. Than you can use Fire&SmokePlayer (attached to your emitter or even null) to read particle data from that file without your machine having to re compute.

To select Color - click on the color gradient. Nearest color will be selected. The selected color is marked white with black line.
To Add Color - to add new color to your gradient just click in the upper black area in the gradient view.
To Remove Color - click on the box below gradient color. Starting color cannot be removed.
To change Age - move the age slider. The currently selected color age will be changed.
Color - changes current color.

Color Mixing - you can choose how your gradient colors should blend each other.
Add Gradient to Presets - you can store your gradients separately in presets to try different colors for the same fire or smoke and to re use your favorite gradients.
Show Color in Viewports - draw colored particles or normal blue (yellow when object is selected).

This tab contains information about current frame. Number of active particles, number of polygons etc.