Latest update:April 27, 2026, 7:00 PM IST

In Indonesia, a rare chemical reaction produces an electric blue glow that doesn’t look like a typical volcanic eruption

This volcano looks like it’s erupting blue fire, and it’s real

At night, a volcano in Indonesia appears to erupt in bright blue.

It doesn’t look like the usual picture of glowing red lava. Instead, the flames and flows appear almost electric – a deep, vibrant blue that stands out sharply in the darkness.

The volcano is called Kawah Ijen, and what you see there isn’t exactly blue lava in the usual sense.

It’s something a little different.

Kawah Ijen releases large amounts of sulfur-rich gas through cracks in the ground. These gases exit at very high temperatures – sometimes over 600 degrees Celsius – and the moment they hit the air, they catch fire.

This is what gives it that blue glow.

Burning sulfur creates bright blue flames, and in the dark, those flames can appear to flow down rocks. From a distance, it looks like blue lava is moving down the side of the volcano, although it is actually burning gas.

During the day, the effect is much less noticeable.

Without darkness, the blue flames are difficult to see, and the volcano looks more like a typical rugged crater. The illusion only comes alive at night, when contrast makes color pop.

There’s also another layer to this place.

Kawah Ijen is home to one of the world’s largest acid crater lakes, filled with highly corrosive turquoise waters. At the pit, miners continue to work under difficult conditions, extracting solid sulfur by hand and then transporting it across the rugged terrain. This is hard and risky work.

So, while the blue glow is what most people notice, it’s only one part of what’s going on here.

What really stands out is how unexpected it feels.

We’re used to thinking of volcanoes in a certain way: red, orange, molten rocks. But here, the same elements behave differently due to conditions, and the result seems almost unreal.

Not that anything unusual is being created. It’s just a reminder that nature doesn’t always look the way we expect. Once you see it, it tends to stay with you.

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