If I have to keep bumping this stuff, I'm gonna make a new game to guess...
The idea would be to stimulate interest because some of you are too smart for us, and when we can't guess it, become emasculated or something and don't check back.
I recognize that fire stage from Life Force, though it looked very different on the NES. Since Life Force was also called Salamander and is the only game I know of that is a side scroller and top down I'm going to guess it's that. :p