There are four different types of burns, as well as four different degrees of burns. The four different types are as follows: • Chemical burns: also referred to as caustic burns, chemical burns occur when your skin or other tissue is exposed to corrosive substances, such as strong acids or bases, drain cleaners, car battery acid, and other such substances. • Electrical burns: these burns result from a burst of electricity that passes through your body and can occur when one is struck by lightning, through accidental contact with exposed wiring, or touching a live wire. • Radiation burns: when your skin is exposed to radiation or ultraviolet rays for too long, radiation burns occur. Examples of radiation burns are sunburns, burns from too much exposure to X-ray imaging, radiotherapy, or other radiation sources. • Thermal burns: these burns occur when your skin or other tissue comes in contact with a heat source that raises the skin’s temperature to the extent that causes cell death and even charring. Examples include any time you touch a hot surface, liquid, or flame. The four different degrees of burns and their characteristics are as follows: • 1st degree: surface-level burns that cause dry skin, redness, pain for two to three days, and peeling skin. A sunburn is a prime example of a 1st-degree burn. • 2nd degree: burns that go past the epidermis and into part of the dermis with symptoms, including blisters, deep redness, skin that appears wet or shiny and is painful to touch, and areas that could be white or discolored in a random pattern. • 3rd degree: burns that affect all of the epidermis and dermis layers of the skin and cause symptoms such as black, brown, yellow, or white skin that may appear dry and leathery, swelling, and lack of pain due to the destruction of nerve endings. • 4th degree: burns that go through the skin layers to the underlying layers of tissue that could involve muscle, bone, tendons, and ligaments. The skin looks charred with the potential for a bone exposed.