How to write 火 (huǒ, “fire”)

火 (huǒ), an HSK 1 character, means “fire”, “urgent” and “ammunition”. Make Me a Hanzi uses it in 134 other characters, such as 伙 (“meals”), 灭 (“to extinguish or put out”) and 灯 (“lamp”). On its own it is an HSK 4 word; it also forms 火车 (“train”), 着火 (“to catch fire”) and 火锅 (“hotpot”). Japanese reads it ka, “fire”, as a JLPT N5 kanji.

Pinyin: huǒ
Strokes: 4
HSK: 1
Radical: 火 (“fire”)

Stroke by stroke

As an overlapping character it splits into 丷 (“"eight" component in Chinese characters”), strokes 1–2; 人 (“person”), strokes 3–4, written the first part first.

Dot ㇔top leftdown and right
Left-falling stroke ㇒top rightdown and right → down and left
Left-falling stroke ㇒topdownwards → down and left
Right-falling stroke ㇏centerdown and right → rightwards

Names of the strokes

Japanese and Chinese

Japanese and Chinese draw all 4 strokes in the same order and direction, by our stroke-by-stroke comparison.

Japanese · KanjiVG · 4 strokes

Chinese · Make Me a Hanzi · 4 strokes

火 inside other characters

Make Me a Hanzi count: 134 characters.

Trace it

Follow the numbers. Tracing help

Pinyin and meaning

Pinyin	Meanings	Traditional	In words
huǒ third tone	fire; urgent; ammunition; fiery or flaming; internal heat (Chinese medicine)	—	火车着火火锅火柴

HSK 2025 syllabus: level 1
2021 standard: level 1
HSK 2.0: in a level 1 word
Words with it: 326 in CC-CEDICT

Words with 火

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
火	huǒ	fire; urgent HSK 4
火车火車	huǒchē	train HSK 1
着火著火	zháohuǒ	to catch fire HSK 4
火锅火鍋	huǒguō	hotpot; (basketball) a blocked shot HSK 5
火柴	huǒchái	match (for lighting fire) HSK 6
火灾火災	huǒzāi	serious fire HSK 6
上火	shànghuǒ	to get angry; to suffer from excessive internal heat (TCM) HSK 7-9
火候	huǒhou	heat control; mastery HSK 7-9
火热火熱	huǒrè	fiery; burning HSK 7-9
点火點火	diǎnhuǒ	to ignite; to light a fire HSK 7-9

HSK words first (CC-CEDICT).

Practice sheet

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Keep going

HSK 1, in list order: