Pool fire is a non-premixed flame established on the surface of a horizontal liquid fuel pool. Analysis of fire scenario and determining the fire safety aspects are mostly done using lab-scale liquid fuel pool fires. Literature reports, a huge amount of research work on pool fires, where the characteristics such as flame length and burning rate have been reported for several scenarios involving different types of liquid fuels. A pool fire can be laminar or turbulent based on the pool diameter and type of fuel. These flames are highly oscillatory and have stable, intermittent and plume regions. Understanding the characteristics of these regions is extremely important. Based on this introduction, a fundamental study involving two alcohol fuels, methanol and ethanol, burnt in circular trays having diameters of 0.05 m and 0.1 m, in a confined environment, has been carried out. Basic burning characteristics such as flame height, mass burning rate, flame width variation and flame puffing frequency have been measured quantitatively. Apart from this, entrainment characteristics have been studied using shadowgraph technique, which has helped in visualizing the flame vortex shedding and measuring the shedding frequency. © 2018 Combustion Institute. All Rights Reserved.