It sounds like you want to animate the position of the fire itself in relation to the subject in which case there are two basic options that I can think of. The first, and most laborious, is to keyframe the position of your fire layer to follow the person who’s meant to be burning – you do this by basically going through the footage frame by frame and, as the other comments says, add position keyframes to follow your subject.
Another option could be to motion track your subject, apply the results to a null object and then parent the fire layer to the null which should make it follow your main figure.
I’m still learning AE too and these are the easiest ways I can think to achieve your effect. If you’ve already managed to generate the fire then you don’t need to worry about particle effects or suchlike. I recommend checking out every tutorial on this site and also on http://www.videocopilot.net – you’ll learn everything you need.
All the best
Tommy
Hype Napungra