Jack-o'-Lantern Candle Flame: 3D Combustion Zones

Candle Controls

Wick exposure 6.0 mm

Airflow / draft 0.10 m/s

Wax type Paraffin (61°C)

Flame State

Flame height

0 mm

Burn rate

0.0 mg/s

Status

Lit

Wax remaining

100%

Dark core — unburned wax vapor rising from the wick, too fuel-rich to burn

Luminous zone — incandescent soot particles glow yellow-orange

Blue mantle — thin outer sheath where vapor meets O₂ and burns completely

🖱️ Drag to orbit · scroll to zoom · see the carved face lit from inside and the flame's real 3D layers from any angle.

How it works

A candle flame is a diffusion flame: fuel and oxidizer are not premixed but meet and burn only where they diffuse into contact, which is why it always organizes into the same layered 3D structure rather than a flat shape.

Close to the wick, rising wax vapor is too fuel-rich and too cool to ignite — a dark, roughly conical core of unburned gas.
Further out, partial combustion cracks the hydrocarbons into tiny soot particles heated to incandescence, giving the luminous yellow-orange zone its glow before the particles burn away or escape as smoke.
A thin outer blue mantle is where hot gases finally reach ambient oxygen and burn completely to CO₂ and H₂O — hot enough to emit blue light instead of the soot's yellow.

Airflow strips heat unevenly around this 3D shell, bending it downwind and thinning the fuel-air mixture; past a critical drop in flame temperature it can no longer sustain vaporization and self-extinguishes.

t = 0.0 s

💨 Flame extinguished
Press "Relight candle" to relight

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