Work

The burning game on graphs

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Motivated by the burning and cooling processes, the burning game is introduced. Two players (Burner and Staller) play the game on a graph G by alternately selecting vertices of G to burn; as in the burning process, burning vertices spread fire to unburned neighbors. Burner aims to burn all vertices of G as quickly as possible, while Staller wants the process to last as long as possible. If both players play optimally, then the number of time steps needed to burn the whole graph G is the game burning number b g ( G ) if Burner makes the first move, and the Staller-start game burning number b g ′ ( G ) if Staller starts. In this paper, basic bounds on b g ( G ) are given and several fundamental properties of the burning game established. Graphs with small game burning numbers are characterized and the game is studied on paths and cycles. An analogue of the burning number conjecture for the burning game is also considered. Finally, it is shown that the problem of determining whether or not b g ( G ) ≤ k is NP-hard.

Source: Discrete Mathematics

DOI: 10.1016/j.disc.2026.115027

Authors: Nina Chiarelli, Vesna Iršič Chenoweth, Marko Jakovac, William B. Kinnersley, Mirjana Mikalački