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Heat comes in Low, Medium Low, Medium, Medium High and High. You may hear it called out in a receipe as "Medium heat", "Medium fire", "Medium flame" or "Medium heat intensity." All these mean the same.

You can estimate the heat on a grill without a thermometer fairly easy with the following method. Hold your hand over the the coals just above the grate, without touching the grate and notice the time you can hold your hand over them. Start counting by saying something like "one thousand one or one thousand two..." Some people like saying "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" instead of "one thousand." It really doesn't matter whichever method of counting you use as long as it approximates a full second.

Minimum safe internal temperatures for meat
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says meats should be cooked to the following minimum internal temperatures. To get the temperature of a cut of meat, you should insert a thermometer at the thickest part of the meat without touching the bone. I like using an instant-read thermometer for this.

Though many recipes for smoking food call for maintaining grill temperatures as low as 200 degrees, the government says the temperature in smokers should be maintained between 250 degrees to 300 degrees.

Of course if you have tasted government food... Course, you don't wanna be sick either.