[krommenaas]

I'm writing a novel and want character A to pour a flammable liquid over character B's chest and put him on fire, but the fire is put out within seconds and it turns out that while B's shirt burned up quickly, the skin beneath it isn't as badly burnt as could be expected. He was lying on his back btw.

Is this at all plausable? Perhaps a liquid that burns up almost immediately and dissipates most of the heat upwards?

[pcm81]

You can have a low temperature flame from some low energy, flammable substances, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiophosphoryl_fluoride, but that won't burn the shirt either.