The fire falling from the sky is not only lightning, meteorites or napalm. The archives of meteorologists contain information about rare phenomena with no less destructive potential.
Panic in the countryside
“The summer sky seemed to be torn in two. A huge pillar of fire appeared in the middle of the field. Swaying threateningly, he roared and hissed through the valley, incinerating everything in its path. Trees, crushed by a fiery tornado, in a split second turned into a black outline against a bright crimson background, in order to disintegrate into dust the next moment. Even a small river could not stop the terrible phenomenon. The tornado swept over it, leaving behind a dry riverbed. He rushed to the village, expanding every second. The peasants fell to their knees, begging heaven for mercy. And the miracle happened. Not reaching two hundred meters to the first houses, the roaring fire tornado dispersed. Hot sparks still hovered in the air, ash was falling, but the danger was over. The shocked residents saw a scorched strip cutting across the valley …"
The phenomenon, colorfully described by the reporter, took place on July 7, 1913 in Spain, near the town of Alcazar. The diameter of the pillar of fire that almost burned the village of Picasent reached 100 meters, and the scorched strip he left stretched for three kilometers.
“The panic in the countryside was terrible. All residents were shouting, fire bells were ringing, warning of danger, scared women and children ran to death,”the newspapers reported the next day.
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Destruction and fire
Much less fortunate is the Spanish village of Lechon in the south of the province of Zaragoza. On July 5, 1945, a pillar of fire twice touched the ground near houses, causing destruction and fires.
“The rotating column fell to the ground with an eerie crash, like the explosion of a giant bomb,” said the village headman. - The flame shot up more than 30 meters. Then the pole rose, hitting the outskirts. The roar was indescribable. Flames and black smoke enveloped the entire village. Roofs burst into flames, walls cracked. Men, women and children ran, screaming in terror.
Employees of a nearby meteorological station observed the disaster, but could not explain what happened.
In the same summer, not far from Almeria (a city in Andalusia), "fiery rain" was falling from the sky, setting fire to the houses and clothes of eyewitnesses. The phenomenon was repeated several times. Scientists who came to Almeria were convinced of its reality: fire from the sky burned a booth with meteorological instruments installed in a field.
Someone suggested that there is uranium ore or an unknown mineral underground that contributes to the occurrence of a flame. Speculators bought more than a thousand plots in the vicinity of Almeria, but the "land fever" ended in disappointment: there was nothing of value in the depths.
Black cloud
On September 6, 1980, a pillar of fire passed near the city of Torrejoncillo (province of Caceres, Spain), setting fire to everything in its path. Local resident Benito Salgado saw rabbits trying to escape the flames. The rabbits fell dead and charred. Then the post split in two and went around Benito's farm on two sides.
The house did not catch fire, but the heat was such that the plastic objects melted and dripped onto the floor, and the glass bottles lost their shape. The barbed wire turned into droplets of molten metal. Benito was found dead without any burns on his body.
Francisco Mejias from the city of La Rinconada (province of Seville) happened to see the moment of the formation of a pillar of fire.
“I heard a strange noise,” he told reporters. - Going out into the street, I found myself in a black cloud, felt unwell and fell to the ground. A gust of wind blew the hat off my head. A cloud of dust gathered in a black column, oddly enough, inclined towards the strong wind that was blowing at that time. And then the column caught fire. Only the foundation remained of my house, the furniture was completely burnt down. The olive trees around the hut are charred.
Electric tornado
Mejias's story led scientists to the idea that a pillar of fire is a tornado, in which excess electricity accumulates. Instead of scattering lightning, it concentrates the charge and is enveloped in plasma. Even air can burn inside the column, decomposing into oxygen and hydrogen.
This hypothesis explains why people who are not affected by the flame die. The metal objects in their pockets melt, although the fabric of the clothing does not burn through and there are no burns on the bodies. A monstrous magnetic field near the column induces currents in metals and melts them at such a speed that clothes do not have time to burn out.
32 Indian
People observed pillars of fire many centuries ago. Ancient Greek scholars named them "prester". Mention about them can be found in the writings of Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Seneca and Heraclitus. Pliny the Elder gives the following description: “When the tornado is ablaze, raging with flames, it is called“prester”. It ignites and overturns everything it comes into contact with."
Published in 1640, the book "The most pleasant walk in the garden of contemplation of nature" reports that sometimes "a tornado, once in a cloud, ignites and flies like a huge cartwheel, terrifying everyone and setting fire to everything that can burn: houses, forests, bread, grass."
The hypothesis of Spanish scientists explains the nature of not all varieties of flying fire. The rains of flame that hit Almeria in the summer of 1945 began in sunny weather with no noticeable wind. 30 people were burned, but this time there were no deaths. A similar fiery rain that fell in the summer of 1910 south of Saskatchewan (Canada) killed 32 Cree Indians and burned the earth to considerable depths. Only one Indian survived, who threw himself into the stream and held out under water until it was over.
The horrors of Europe
Another kind of mysterious natural phenomenon is mentioned in ancient chronicles under the name "wild (or air) fire". It is about a glowing fire cloud in the sky. The ancient author wrote that if it decreases, livestock and crops will die. The touch of a cloud incinerates even that which normally does not burn.
“In 823, miracles appeared,” wrote the chronicler Ademar Shabansky. - In Saxony in the Firihsazi area, 23 villages were burned by fire from the sky along with people and cattle. For 12 days, ash fell from the clear sky during the day. On July 1, 939, "fire from the sea" burned down a number of cities on the Spanish coast.
The Chronicle of Compostella (a Latin-language essay on the history of Spain) contains a long list of burned-out settlements.
In 992, fire from the Rhine burned many cities and villages in Germany.
The chronicler Florence of Worcester reports that in 1048 “an incomprehensible wild fire killed many people and cattle throughout England. A fire burning in the air burned cities and ripe wheat in the fields. In 1067, everything happened again. Flying fire set fires to forests and fields, appearing over Northumberland for two seasons.
In Russia, fiery clouds were also well known. In the "Solikamsk Chronicler" twice it is mentioned about their appearance over the city. On August 17, 1698, "a cloud of fire, from which ash and sparks poured," safely passed Solikamsk.
In 1705, a burning cloud, without touching the city, burned the distant surroundings: "A few days later peasants came from Obva and Yinva, telling that a fiery cloud burned not only their houses and forests, but even herbs, cattle and animals in the forest."
On August 13, 1874, at about 11 pm, a "glowing electric cloud" appeared over the American town of Pascagula and flew over the outskirts, exuding intense heat. The townspeople in horror expected that their houses were about to catch fire and that they themselves would also burn down. Nevertheless, the monstrous "cloud" half a mile long peacefully departed. The power of its glow was such that it became clearly visible to the ship, anchored far out to sea.
The last appearance of the "wild fire" low above the ground occurred on June 15, 1960 over Lake Whitney, Texas. The heat wave generated by it blew up the radiators of the cars and set off the fire alarm in the town of Copperl. All the fields in the area turned black, the plants turned to ash.
Fire in the atmosphere
"Wild fire" - a phenomenon even rarer than pillars of fire, and therefore less studied. According to indirect evidence, this is a real flame, not a clot of plasma: the appearance of a "wild fire" is not accompanied by electromagnetic effects. Unlike recently recognized by science "sprites" - high-altitude electrical discharges, the lifespan of a flame and the vortices generated by it is calculated in minutes.
"Wild Fire" lights up in the sky after a lightning strike. Lightning acts like a match, igniting some kind of gas and provoking an unknown chemical reaction. The cloud goes out by itself when the supply of catalyst gas runs out.
Translated from English by Mikhail GERSHTEIN, magazine "Secrets of the XX century" # 48