Flame Enchantment in Minecraft: What Fire Arrows Can Light

Flame sets the arrows from your bow on fire. Anything they hit starts burning, taking about 4 extra damage over 5 seconds (the first tick is usually lost to hit immunity). Flame has one level, goes only on bows, and conflicts with nothing.

What Flame arrows ignite

• Mobs and players
• TNT, which you can now detonate from a safe distance
• Campfires and candles

That’s the full list. Flame arrows don’t set grass, wood or wool on fire, and they don’t give off light. Shooting through water or rain puts the arrow out.

Lighting campfires and candles from range is handier than it sounds. A row of candles on a high shelf, or a campfire you put out with a shovel, can be lit with one shot instead of climbing up with flint and steel.

Where it falls short

• Fire-immune mobs ignore it: blazes, ghasts, magma cubes, striders, wither skeletons, zombified piglins and most Nether mobs, plus the Ender Dragon, Wither and Warden. Piglins, piglin brutes and hoglins do burn, and so do skeletons and endermen, even in the Nether.
• Mobs that die from fire alone drop no XP unless you also hit them with something other than fire in the last 5 seconds. The arrow’s hit counts, so this rarely matters.
• Cows, pigs and chickens killed while burning drop cooked meat, same as with Fire Aspect. Nice for hunting, annoying if you wanted raw beef for a smoker.
• Burning zombies that reach you can set you on fire.
• Fire Resistance blocks the burn, so against a PvP opponent who has drunk the potion you only get the arrow’s own damage.

Flame on other weapons

In survival, Flame only goes on bows. Crossbows and tridents can’t take it from a table or an anvil. A crossbow’s answer to Flame is the firework rocket: it explodes instead of burning, and a Multishot crossbow fires three of them at once.

Getting it

Flame rolls on the enchanting table for bows and turns up on books from fishing, monster rooms and other chests. Its table weight is 2, so it shows up much less often than Power. Librarians sell it for 5 to 19 emeralds in default trading; with the experimental Villager Trade Rebalance on, taiga librarians do.

Worth it?

Yes. It’s a cheap damage boost that stacks with Power, and remote TNT lighting is useful for mining and trap building. A Power V, Flame, Unbreaking III and Infinity or Mending bow is a solid all-rounder. See best bow enchantments for the ranking.

The only time to leave it off is a bow you use at an animal farm where you want raw meat, or one you use near your own TNT.