How close can you get to lava?

Question

Say, for example, someone stumbled upon this: http://www.sciam.com/video.cfm?id=5C8EBC7981DF07837615EF7C863B1942

that is, a little part of the Earth that is spewing red hot magma. I assume there is tremendous heat radiating from it, but how close could you get without getting burned?

Could you touch it with a small stick, or would the stick burn up before it even touched the lava?

Answer 1

you can touch lava with a stick but it will ignite

Answer 2

you could probably get within 2-3 feet but you should have a suit on....the heat will be tremendous....it may ignite instantly so I would be very very very careful

Answer 3

i think under normal circumstances, it is very hot and you could feel the heat, but you might be able to get close enough to touch it with a stick, providing it is long enough. it would probably ignite on contact with the lava.

this being said, i would not recommend it. a famous husband and wife team of vulcanologists made it their life's work to study lava and traveled to wherever eruptions were occurring. it was obviously their passion. the cruel irony is that on one particular trip, they were measuring flow from a crevice, when unexpectedly, internal pressure caused the lava to spew from the crack. they were both killed instantly in their heat-resistant suits.