Does wood burning continuously outside a temple necessarily mean harmful influences are being neutralized?

Not necessarily. Seeing a brazier with continuously burning wood outside a temple does not establish that it is neutralizing harmful influences. Fire can serve different purposes.

In traditional belief, fire carries meanings of removing and transforming harmful influences, and I also understand its energy-transforming role through the Five Elements. Some occasions may involve fire offerings, while newly built temples may use it to neutralize harmful influences and pray for peace. The actual arrangements still need consideration.

While visiting Japan with fellow practitioners, I also saw places where wood kept burning without the fire going out, which we described then as an everlasting sacred flame. In some deliverance ceremonies, braziers instead announce to nearby wandering spirits that a deliverance ritual is being held and they are welcome to receive help.

Understanding a ritual therefore requires more than looking at its outward form. We need to know the intention assigned to it. Gradually accumulating knowledge helps distinguish why activities that all appear to involve burning fire may actually serve different purposes.