What are burns?

Burns are when your skin gets hurt by something really hot or really cold.

Burns can happen in many ways:

• When you touch a hot stove, like the one your mom uses to cook pancakes.
• When you spill hot soup on your arm, and it feels like fire is crawling up your skin.
• Sometimes even cold things can cause burns, like if you put an ice cube on your skin for too long, it’s like giving your skin a chilly hug that goes too far.

Your skin has layers, kind of like the pages in a book. When something hot touches your skin, it starts to hurt, and sometimes it feels like it's bubbling or tingling, like when you step on wet sand at the beach. The more layers that get hurt, the worse the burn feels, just like if you read too many books in one day, your brain gets tired.

If a burn is really bad, it might even look red or blistery, like when a balloon pops and goes whoosh!