Burning Flame
Burning Flame (#DC6C40) is a true orange with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (17°, 69%, 56%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
The progressive participle of burn — used as a color modifier for hues that read as actively luminous, as if combustion is in progress. Burning red, burning orange: the implication is high saturation combined with thermal heat. Sits in the bright-and-warm corner alongside hot and flame. Slightly more active than smoldering.
The luminous combustion zone of a fire — the visible portion of incandescent gas, where temperature determines color. The orange of a wood flame sits around 1,100°C; hotter and it shifts to yellow, hotter still to white. The color is a saturated, slightly red orange with the suggestion of internal motion. Hotter than ember, brighter than rust, alive in a way pigment never quite captures.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.