Sorry to hear that. Part of that is likely due to my poor instructions / lack of a tutorial (my bad). The 'tree/bush' thing can be interacted with at the start and once you have 2 wood you can also interact with the spots marked by the arrow. The center flame is only interactable once the fire starts weakening (which only happens at night).
As for the 'flew up', can you describe that in more detail? That I have less of an idea for why that is happening.
Regardless, thanks for playing and apologies for the bugs!