How hot is a candle flame?

A candle flame usually burns at around 1000°C, but can vary depending on where in the flame you measure, for example, the bottom of the flame near the wick will be burning hotter than at the tip of the flame at the very top.

Michael de Podesta finally got around to filing some holes in the side of his lovely candle lantern in his lab so we could see for ourselves how hot a candle really gets. Its quite easy to position a thermocouple anywhere in the candle flame. And it is hot!


In the above photo, you can see the end of the thermometer being placed within the flame. In the photo below the temperature reading is displayed and as you can see it’s a very hot 829C!