From tornado-force winds to superhot flames, dare you discover nature’s most violent infernos?
Firestorms are among nature’s most violent and unpredictable phenomena. Tornado-force winds sweep superhot flames of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) through buildings and forests alike. Victims often suffocate before they can flee and entire towns can be obliterated.
Survivors of firestorms describe darkness, 100-metre (330-foot)-high fireballs and a roaring like a jumbo jet. To give you an idea of the sheer heat, firestorms can be hot enough to melt aluminium and tarmac, warp copper and even turn sand into glass.
Firestorms happen worldwide, especially in the forests of the United States and Indonesia, and in the Australian bush. They occur mostly in summer and autumn when vegetation is tinder dry. Although they are a natural phenomenon, among the most devastating were triggered deliberately.
During World War II, for instance, Allied forces used incendiaries and explosives to create devastating firestorms in Japanese and German cities. Firestorms also erupted after the cataclysmic impact 65.5 million years ago that many believe to have triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Climate change may be already increasing the risk of mega-fires by making summers ever hotter and drier.
The risk of an Australian firestorm striking a major city has also heightened in the last 40 years. Climate change may have exacerbated this by increasing the risk of long heat waves and extremely hot days. In January 2013 alone, a hundred bushfires raged through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania following a record-breaking heat wave. Maximum daily temperatures rose to 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit), beating the previous record set in 1972.
Firestorms can happen during bush or forest fires, but are not simply wildfires. Indeed, a firestorm is massive enough to create its own weather. The thunderstorms, powerful winds and fire whirls – mini tornadoes of spinning flames – it can spawn are all part of its terrifying power.
The intense fire can have as much energy as a thunderstorm. Hot air rises above it, sucking in additional oxygen and dry debris, which fuel and spread the fire. Winds can reach tornado speed – tens of times the ambient wind speeds. The huge pillar of rising air – called a thermal column – swirling above the firestorm can generate thunderclouds and even lightning strikes that spark new fires.
The thermal column, in turn, can spawn a number of fiery tornadoes, which can tower to 200 metres (650 feet) and stretch 300 metres (980 feet) wide, lasting for at least 20 minutes. These fling flaming logs and other burning debris across the landscape, spreading the blaze. The turbulent air can gust at 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour, scorching hillsides as far as 100 metres (330 feet) away from the main fire. It’s far more powerful than a typical wildfire, which moves at around 23 kilometres (14.3 miles) per hour – just under the average human sprint speed.
Like all fires, firestorms need three things to burn. First is a heat source for ignition and to dry fuel so it burns easier. Fuel, the second must, is anything that combusts, whether that be paper, grass or trees. Thirdly, all fires need at least 16 per cent oxygen to facilitate their chemical processes. When wood or other fuel burns, it reacts with oxygen in the surrounding air to release heat and generate smoke, embers and various gases. Firestorms are so intense that they often consume all available oxygen, suffocating those who try to take refuge in ditches, air-raid shelters or cellars.
How do mushroom clouds form?
Their tops can reach an incredible nine kilometres (six miles) above the ground. When the fire heats the air, it rises in a powerful updraft that lifts water vapour, ash and dust.
The vapour starts to cool high in the atmosphere and condenses as water droplets on the ash. As a result, a cloud forms that can quickly become a thunderstorm with lightning and rain, if enough water is available. The lightning can start new fires, but on the bright side, rain can extinguish them.
How firestorms change the weather
Firestorms can release as much energy as a lightning storm on a hot summer’s afternoon.
Warm air above the fire is lighter than the surrounding air so it rises; the swirling pillar of lifting air above the fire is called a thermal column. This tornado-like structure is responsible for a firestorm’s power. Under the right weather conditions, air can rise inside the column at eye-watering speeds of 270 kilometres (170 miles) per hour!
Cooler air gusts into the space left behind by the ascending air, causing violent winds that merge fires together into a single intense entity. They also blow in oxygen, wood and other flammable material that serve to fuel and intensify the blaze.
Turbulent air spiralling around the thermal column can spawn fire tornadoes and throw out sparks. These can set light to trees and houses tens of metres away, increasing the conflagration’s range.
Fighting firestorms
Fire wardens, air patrols and lookout stations all help detect fires early, before they can spread. Once a fire starts, helicopters and air tankers head to the scene. They spray thousands of gallons of water, foam of flame-retardant chemicals around the conflagration. In the meantime, firefighters descend by rope or parachute to clear nearby flammable material.
We can reduce the risk of fire breaking out in the first place by burning excess vegetation under controlled conditions. Surprisingly this can actually benefit certain plants and animals. Canadian lodgepole pines, for example, rely partly on fire to disperse their seeds. Burning also destroys diseased trees and opens up congested woodland to new grasses and shrubs, which provides food for cattle and deer.
Vegetation in fire-prone areas often recovers quickly from a blaze. Plants like Douglas fir, for instance, have fire-resistant bark – although it can only withstand so much heat. Forest owners help flora to return by spreading mulch, planting grass seed and erecting fences.
Top 6 Mega Disasters Firestorms
1. Black Saturday – In 2009, one of Australia’s worst bushfires killed 173 people, injured 5,000, destroyed 2,029 homes, killed numerous animals and burnt 4,500 square kilometres (1,700 square miles) of land. Temperatures may have reached 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,192 degrees Fahrenheit).
2. Great Peshtigo – The deadliest fire in American history claimed 1,200-2,500 lives, burned 4,860 square kilometres (1,875 square miles) of Wisconsin and upper Michigan and destroyed all but two buildings in Peshtigo in 1871.
3. Ash Wednesday – More than 100 fires swept across Victoria and South Australia on 16 February 1983, killing 75 people, destroying 3.000 homes and killing 50.000 sheep and cows. It was the worst firestorm in South Australia’s history.
4. Hamburg 1943 – This firestorm brought on by an Allied bomb strike in 1943 killed an estimated 44,600 civilians, left many more homeless and levelled a 22-square-kilometre (8.5-square-mile) area of the German city. Hurricane-force winds of 240 kilometres (150 miles) per hour were raised.
5. Great Kanto – A 7.9-magnitude earthquake on 1 September 1923 triggered a firestorm that burned 45 per cent of Tokyo and killed over 140,000. This included 44,000 who were incinerated by a 100-metre (330-foot) fire tornado.
6. Atomic bombing of Hiroshima – Firestorm covering 4.4 square miles (11 km2). From the explosion and the resulting firestorm, between 70,000 and 80,000 civilians died in a few hours. The temperature on the ground near the center of the explosion reached up to 5000 ° C. A powerful impact wave, speeds of 800 km/h (500mph), and flammable storms destroyed almost everything within 11 square kilometers.