Graph burning is a process to determine the spreading of information in a graph. If a
sequence of vertices burns all the vertices of a graph by following the graph burning
process, then such a sequence is known as a burning sequence. The graph burning
problem consists in finding a minimum length burning sequence for a given graph. The
solution to this NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem helps quantify a graph's
vulnerability to contagion. This paper introduces a simple farthest-first traversal-based …

The graph burning problem is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that helps
quantify the vulnerability of a graph to contagion. This paper introduces a simple farthest-first
traversal-based approximation algorithm for this problem over general graphs. We refer to
this proposal as the Burning Farthest-First (BFF) algorithm. BFF runs in $ O (n^ 3) $ steps
and has an approximation factor of $3-2/b (G) $, where $ b (G) $ is the size of an optimal
solution. Despite its simplicity, BFF tends to generate near-optimal solutions when tested …