today i'm going to show you how to safely and properly light a bunsen burner put your goggles on first here's my bunsen burner you can see that it's already connected to the gas supply by a length of rubber tubing there it is there's the gas supply nozzle the gas is in the off position if i turn the handle from perpendicular to parallel with the gas nozzle the gas is turned on now i'm going to light my bunsen burner with a match i take that lit match and run it up the side of the barrel of the bunsen burner until it comes in contact with the gas and ignites the flame and then extinguish the match and put it somewhere safe to cool down it's important to run that match up the side of the barrel don't just hold it over the top of the bunsen burner because if the flame is set high you can burn yourself now i'm going to adjust the height of the flame of my bunsen burner there's a cog at the bottom that adjusts how much gas gets let into that bunsen burner and adjusts how high the flame will be i'm turning it up just to show you how it can be adjusted but you don't want a big flame like this you want to turn it back down so you have a nice tight triangle with a little bright blue cone in the center kind of a triangle within a triangle i can also adjust the flame by turning the barrel as well to fine tune it a little bit now i have the flame just where i want it when i'm done with my bunsen burner i simply turn off the gas and that will extinguish the flame i know it looks like my arms right above the flame in the shot it's not it's just the angle of the shot make sure you keep your clothing and your skin and yourself away from that flame so i just turn that handle above the nozzle from parallel to perpendicular and that will extinguish the flame all done