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When someone is burned

For people in the United States when someone has been burned or scalded: a hand on the stove, a spilled cup of coffee, a child in a hot bath, oil from a pan, a cleaner on the skin, a shock from a cord, clothes that caught fire, a day too long in the sun. For the person it happened to, and for whoever is beside them. Is this a 911 burn? Cool it, cover it. What not to put on it. Clothes or a room on fire. Chemical burns. Electricity and lightning. Smoke, and a burned airway. Sunburn. Children and scalds. The days after. Before the next one. And the words to say when you call. No quiz and no score. One thing at a time.

This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). The facts come from pages read on October 2, 2026: MedlinePlus, from the U.S. National Library of Medicine (its encyclopedia pages Burns; Chemical burn or reaction; Electrical injury; and Sunburn; and its health topics Burns and Inhalation Injuries); the American Burn Association (Burn First Aid; Scald Burns; Chemical Burns; and the opening of its burn center directory); the American Academy of Pediatrics, on HealthyChildren.org (Burn Treatment & Prevention Tips for Families; First Aid for Burns: Parent FAQs; and Sun Safety); the American Academy of Dermatology (How to treat a first-degree, minor burn; and How to treat sunburn); Ready.gov (Home Fires); the U.S. Fire Administration (Cooking Fire Safety; Smoke Alarms; and Home Fire Escape Plans); the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (Fireworks); the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Sun Safety Facts); the National Weather Service (Five Ways Lightning Strikes People); Poison Control, from the National Capital Poison Center (First aid guidelines, read earlier the same day for our poisoning page); the front page of the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors and its Phoenix SOAR page; and the front page of the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline. The descriptions of the 988 Lifeline and Crisis Text Line are from their own front pages, read the same day. The American Burn Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Dermatology, the National Capital Poison Center, the Phoenix Society, Childhelp and Crisis Text Line are private organisations describing themselves; we have no connection with any of them. We did not call or text any line. Four pages we asked for returned “page not found” (among them the U.S. Fire Administration’s page on scalds and a Consumer Product Safety Commission page on tap water scalds), so they are not used. We did not read any first aid manual or CPR course, any clinical guideline or burn referral criteria, any workplace rule, or the research behind any statement; where the page touches one of these, it says so. Where sources say different things, the page reports each: how many minutes to cool a burn, whether to put a cream or ointment on a small burn, how long to rinse off a chemical, petroleum jelly on sunburn, and the sunscreen number. The page has no questionnaire and gives no score, on purpose: a list is not an assessment. It names no pain medicine and gives no dose; it names two numbing ingredients only because MedlinePlus says not to use them on sunburn. It quotes no named person and gives no figures for how many people are burned or die in fires; the sources have them, with their context. The times, sizes and temperatures on the page (minutes of cooling, the size of a palm, 120 degrees Fahrenheit) are the sources’ own. Lines marked “Ours” are our own suggestions. English only for now. This page saves nothing: no account, no cookies, nothing you tick is stored or sent, and no analytics (privacy). Scarlet Beast is not a clinic, a burn center, a fire department or a government agency, and takes no money from anyone named here. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].