Why is sunburn skin radiate heat?

Question

I got sunburnt over the weekend, it has happened before, but I've never really questioned why sunburnt skin radiates heat for days afterward. Why does this happen? If I burnt myself via fire, would it still happen?

Answer 1

It's the blood vessels expanding and radiating more heat through your burnt skin. It's basically an inflammation.

Answer 2

The skin is swollen and inflamed, and the blood vessels expand along with the skin. The swollen and puffy skin that has the superficial sunburn will radiate more heat than the unburned skin.

If you burned yourself via fire, it would depend on how bad the burn is. If it's a superficial burn (just on the surface, which is what sunburn usually is) you'd get the same reaction. If you have a partial thickness burn, the damage is greater, you'd see blistering, and more skin damage because the burn goes further into the skin than a sunburn. Both are extremely painful, because the nerve endings are where the burned area is.

A full-thickness burn would be cooked well into the skin, and possibly down to the bone. These don't hurt at all because the nerve endings are cooked dead. The areas that aren't burned as severely surrounding it would hurt like a mother, though.

Old terminology ---------------> New terminology

1st degree burn ----------------> Superficial burn

2nd degree burn ---------------->Partial thickness burn

3rd degree burn ----------------> Full thickness burn