The color only changes when there's not enough oxygen (burning rich). Those diesel particles are soot, which are clumps of carbon molecules... (and you're talking about smoke, not flame). The flames in those conditions would be orange.
burning propane is not invisible to humans. The color you see is a black body radiation from the hot molecules. If it's blue, you're seeing the radiation from the CO2/H20 molecules that are very hot. If it's yellow or orange you're seeing glowing carbon atoms, which indicates a rich mixtures...