How to make a Forest Fire in iMovie???

Hi Everyone!

My friends and I are filming a short film based on a favorite book. In the movie, we need to have a short scene where a character in running away from a forest firestorm. Could anyone tell me how to
1) add a realistic fire effect to the film in iMovie '09

or

2) free movie editing softwares that will make that happen.

Thank you so much!

You don't.

You would add that effect in another program, and then move that footage into iMovie.

You might look at the "Action Movie" app for the iPhone to get an idea of what's possible, then check around for special effects movie software that can give you exactly what you're looking for.

It's very, very, very unlikely to be free of course.

I suppose you could do some kind of green-screen fire and then superimpose that on your shot of the character running out of the forest, the ability to merge those two things is built into iMovie (see the tutorial for more on that).