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Off-road (like for tractors, bulldozers, and so forth) diesel fuel is dyed red, but it is otherwise equivalent to the sort of heating oil one burns in oil furnaces. This is a useful thing to know if you have neglected to get the fuel oil tank for the furnace filled in a timely fashion and cannot summon Brave Sir Robin the BVP delivery guy until the road melts out a bit.

Now, merely putting more fuel in the fuel tank does not make the furnace all happy. If you have well and truly run out the fuel in the tank, you may need to bleed the fuel line before the furnace will start and run for you. The bleed valve is located on the fuel line, almost immediately before it goes into the furnace. It is smallish, sort of like a nipple, and you open and close it using a crescent wrench.

Bleeding a furnace in easy steps:

1. Get a container you do not care about, one that will hold about a pint of fluid.
2. Wear old clothes -- fuel oil is stinky
3. Locate a crescent wrench of an appropriate size and leverage
4. Mumble the righty tighty lefty loosey thing
5. Twist the bleed valve thing to what you believe is the "open" position
6. Hold container under bleed valve.
7. Press start button on furnace. It is usually red.
8. Wait for furnace to start, observe valve. Is it drooling, hissing, sputtering, or otherwise indicating air in the fuel line? This is good.
9. The furnace will turn itself off because it's not getting any fuel. It will make you wait, usually about a minute, before it will let you start it again. This is normal.
10. Wait about a minute.
11. Repeat 6-10 until the stream of oil is solid and smooth and steady. When that happens, proceed to 12.
12. Tighten the bleed valve back up to a nonleaking position.
13 Press the button again. If you were right about the observation in step 11, the furnace should start up and run like it's all happy and stuff.