A tornado or tornado, if we talk about the analogue of this word in Russian, is one of the most destructive and beautiful natural atmospheric phenomena on Earth. But there is an even more catastrophic and incredibly beautiful version of a tornado - a fire tornado. It looks just bewitching and incredible. It seems that it is possible only in the form of special effects in cinema.
However, this is a very rare phenomenon that can occur both at the site of natural forest fires and anthropogenic factors - fires or bombings.
Incipient firestorm, California, September 13, 2006
A fire tornado is formed in those rare cases when the emerged scattered fires are combined into one. At the same time, the air above it heats up, its density decreases and it rises upward, forming a thrust. From below, cold air masses begin to flow, coming from the periphery of the fire. Thus, a colossal suction of oxygen is formed, and the entire system begins to act like bellows, pumping and heating the air more and more.
Fire tornado. Alice Springs, Chris Tangey, Australia, 2012
During a fiery tornado, a column of fire may appear, heated to a thousand degrees Celsius and rising into the atmosphere at a distance of up to five kilometers! At the same time, such a tornado sucks in and burns everything around. Of course, such destructive fire tornadoes do not occur often, but one of them, in 1923 in Japan, which lasted only 15 minutes, killed almost forty thousand people! In 15 minutes! That tornado arose after the Great Kanto earthquake from massive fires, and was not only a natural phenomenon, but its destructive power was colossal.
One of the most recent fairly large-scale fire tornadoes happened quite recently, in early September in Australia, in the famous place of Alice Springs, the capital of central Australia (not far from it is the famous Mount Uluru). The most amazing thing is that at this time in this very place, Australian director Chris Tangey and his crew were going to shoot a film, not expecting to be able to shoot an equally grandiose event.
Promotional video:
Literally three hundred meters from the filming location, a pillar of fire soared up to the sky, which burned everything in its path. As it turned out, the film crew witnessed a rare natural phenomenon - a fire tornado.
This tornado was not as terrible and destructive as in Japan, but nevertheless it lasted more than 40 minutes and rose to a height of about 30 meters.
Usually a fire tornado is observed for two to three minutes. The strangeness of the appearance of this tornado in Alice Springs was that the weather that day was not hot, only about 25 degrees Celsius, while it was almost completely calm.
Usually a fire tornado is observed for two to three minutes. The strangeness of the appearance of this tornado in Alice Springs was that the weather that day was not hot, only about 25 degrees Celsius, while it was almost completely calm.
At the same time, the vicinity of Alice Springs, although it is a rather hot and dry place, is practically the very center of desert central Australia, such phenomena are practically not observed here, and as Chris Tangey, a director from Alice Springs, shares his impressions during his 23-year career and shooting in the vicinity of Uluru he had never seen anything like it.
Fire Whirlwind, UK, 1986
A devastating fire tornado occurred in 2011 in the suburbs of the Hungarian capital Budapest during a fire at a plastics factory. Then about 70 fire brigades were involved in its liquidation.
Burning Police Headquarters Building, Kanto, Japan, September 15, 1923
The height of the column of fire during the firestorm in Budapest reached about 10 meters.
Fire tornado. USA, 2011
A firestorm is a special case of a strong top fire that spreads very quickly through the treetops during the strongest flattering fires. The same principle of thermal draft. But, as a rule, because of the strong wind, the fire spreads not in the form of a column of fire, but in the form of a continuous fiery stream spreading at an incredible speed. A very strong firestorm was observed during the 1988 Yellowstone Fire.
Fire tornado. Alice Springs, Chris Tangey, Australia, 2012
Australian director Chris Tangey has captured a rare natural phenomenon - a firestorm 30 meters high. The burning pillar originated near the city of Alice Springs, Australia. The burning pillar appeared not far from the film crew - amazed Tenji and his colleagues watched the burning tornado for about 40 minutes.
Scientists argue that such a vortex can occur when a column of rising air causes a fire or comes into contact with a flame.
A fire tornado is formed when the scattered fires that have arisen are combined into one huge fire. The air above it heats up, its density decreases and it rises up. From below, cold air masses come from the periphery to its place. The incoming air is also heated. Oxygen suction acts like bellows.
Stable centripetal directional flows are formed, screwing counterclockwise from the ground to a height of up to five kilometers. There is a chimney effect. The plasma pressure reaches hurricane speeds. The temperature jumps up to 600˚С. Everything burns or melts. And so on until everything that can burn
The speed of rotation of the air inside the fire tornado reaches incredible rates - over 400 km / h, and the temperature reaches 1000 degrees Celsius - at such a temperature, some metals can be melted.
The air above the fire heats up, its density decreases and it rises up. From below, cold air masses come from the periphery to its place. The incoming air is also heated. Oxygen suction acts like bellows. Stable centripetal directional flows are formed, screwing counterclockwise from the ground to a height of up to five kilometers. There is a chimney effect. The plasma pressure reaches hurricane speeds. The temperature jumps to 600? C. Everything burns or melts. And so on until everything that can burn is burned out.
Many have noted that volcanic clouds cause tornadoes. Such tornadoes occurred, in particular, during the eruptions of the volcanoes Parikutin, Myodzin, Hekla, etc.
Vertical eddies similar to dust eddies formed over the hot fields of lava, slags, pyroclastics. They are not always visible. Whirlwinds rise to the clouds, from where real tornadoes descended.
The strongest firestorms occurred during the fire of oil storage tanks in California in April 1926.
Lightning, hitting a huge oil storage, caused its explosion and a strong fire of oil. Then the fire spread to the neighboring oil storage facilities. The fire blazed for five days. On the second day, when the fire was strongest, the largest number of firestorms was observed. Some of these tornadoes were invisible and only showed up in photographs.
Fire tornadoes spread 4-5 km from the place of their origin. Sometimes they reach great strength; one of these tornadoes lifted a 1.5 m wooden house and carried it 50 meters. The house was completely destroyed, the owner and his son were killed.
The existence of ascending currents is not enough for the emergence of a fiery whirlwind - for their appearance, cumulus clouds are also necessary. It is the vortices in these clouds that create the initial impulse necessary for the birth of a tornado.
This group of atmospheric vortices can also include fire vortices that occur during large fires. The whirlwind that arose during the great fire in Stockbridge (England) in 1854 broke trees and lifted them into the air.
They occur during forest fires, explosions of large quantities of natural gas and even large fireworks.
Strong vortices have arisen in the United States in the last century when the accumulated mass of brushwood was shrinking. The whirlwind was accompanied by a roar and raised rather large trees into the air.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is said to have killed fewer people as a result of the blast and heat than in the fires in the bombings of Hamburg and Dresden. What is the reason?
This question was of interest to P. Krutzen, director of the Max Planck Institute, and J. Beers from the University of Colorado. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the reason is the high rise of German houses. The narrow streets were like gorges and created a strong draft during the fires, similar to that which occurs in the furnaces. The developing flames caused the buildings in the neighboring neighborhoods to burn; the air was heated to temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees. This, in turn, caused the combustion of those materials whose ignition temperature is too high to burn in conventional fires.
Tongues of flame, fiery streams, merged into one red-hot bundle of flame and black smoke. The width of this vortex at the base was up to 2000 meters, and a column of fire and smoke formed, which rose to the tropopause itself. Crutzen called it a fire tornado.
A fiery whirlwind also appeared during the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, and such that it lifted the trunks of heavy trees into the air and sucked water from ponds.
The fire whirlwinds were produced artificially. For this, oil nozzles were built, which gave a huge flame. The simultaneous burning of 15 of these nozzles generated a vortex of fire 40 meters across.
When the number of nozzles was increased to 40, a giant black pillar produced a black cloud that was as large as those seen on a number of erupting volcanoes or in oil well fires. When the cloud tilted slightly under the influence of the wind, short small funnels began to appear on its leeward side. Having reached the ground, these craters formed real tornadoes.
In conclusion, it should be said about strange phenomena that resemble a strong thermal effect, but are noted with ordinary tornadoes. In some cases, the bark is neatly peeled off from trees and branches, sometimes from only one side. But the exposed areas of wood sometimes look like those burnt by fire. Even a bird killed and completely plucked by a tornado looks like it has begun to fry.
Removal of bark can result from an air layer that can be present between the bark and the wood. This layer explodes on a pressure drop caused by a tornado. That is why feathers of birds are "shot back".
Fire tornado. Alice Springs, Chris Tangey, Australia, 2012
Here is a video of natural tornadoes …
In the center of Australia, members of the film crew witnessed a rare natural phenomenon - a fire tornado, which is also called the "Devil's Fire". Instead of fleeing from the fire element, the filmmakers took out their cameras and began filming the tornado.
According to the film's director Chris Tangy, there were no prerequisites for a tornado. The air temperature barely exceeded 25 degrees Celsius, the weather was calm and clear.
Chris Tangi: "Then someone from the film crew shouted: 'What the hell is this?" I turned around and saw a 30-meter tornado flame. The tornado sounded like it was a jet fighter. From what I saw, my jaw almost fell off. " …
Artificially created fire tornado. USA, 2011
Here is one of the options for an artificial fire tornado.
Here's the second option:
The largest and most destructive firestorms were observed in Hamburg, Dresden and during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during the Second World War, as a result of the strongest fires that arose as a result of the bombing.
During the Second World War, the American and British Air Force Commands developed a technology for organizing and conducting massive bomb attacks on large cities, which ensured maximum destruction and the maximum number of civilian casualties.
It was based on the idea of creating a "fire tornado" over the city - an artificial atmospheric phenomenon, when millions of tons of air form a giant inverted funnel with a huge thrust and high temperature at the epicenter over a large area of fire.
"Fire tornado" is formed when the scattered fires that have arisen in the city are combined into one huge bonfire. The air above it heats up, its density decreases and it rises. From below, in its place, cold air masses come from the periphery, which provide the process with oxygen, heat up and rush upward. Stable centripetal directional flows are formed, screwing counterclockwise from the ground to a height of up to five kilometers. A draft is formed, as in a chimney. In the final stage, the pressure of the plasma reaches hurricane speeds and the temperature rises to 600-1000˚С. Anything that does not burn begins to melt or deform. The process continues as long as it is supplied with fuel, i.e. until everything that can burn burns out. An additional damaging factor is the lack of oxygen in the area covered by the firestorm. Therefore, people hiding in basements die of suffocation.
One of the most important conditions for the emergence of a "fire tornado" is the presence of a sufficient number of wooden buildings and structures in the affected area.
Therefore, in November 1941, a list of "Unison" was compiled in England, which included 19 large German cities to be destroyed and located according to the degree of "flammability".
The bombing technique itself was based on carpet bombing, carried out by various types of bombs in a specific sequence, at calculated intervals:
1. The first wave of air raids dropped medium-explosive bombs to destroy roofs and expose the wooden structures of buildings.
2. The second wave - incendiary bombs, providing simultaneous and uniform ignition of a large area.
3. The third wave - high-explosive bombs of a larger size for destroying the carriageway of streets and blocking the passages with the debris of collapsed buildings in order to impede the work of fire-fighting and rescue services.
Since such a bombing technique required a clear organization in terms of accuracy, volume and timing of bombing, the other most important conditions for choosing a target were the absence of a strong air defense system and good weather conditions.
On January 21, at a conference in Casablanca, the directive of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Allies "On strengthening the joint air offensive against Germany" was adopted.
In early June 1943, on the basis of the Directive, a plan was developed for a United Bomber Offensive from the British Isles, codenamed Pointblank.
In accordance with the Pointblank plan, from July 25 to August 3, 1943, Operation Gomorrah was carried out - a massive multi-day raid on the second largest city in Germany - Hamburg.
It was attended by 3095 British and American bombers.
8,621 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, two thirds of which were incendiary.
After the bombing, the fire raged in the city for several more days, and the column of smoke reached 6 km.
Until August 6, it was impossible to carry out rescue operations, since the debris of the ruins had not yet cooled down.
According to the report of the British Office for the Study of the Results of Strategic Bombings, the city was destroyed by 55-60%, and 75-80% of this destruction was the result of fires, i.e. the result was considered satisfactory.
According to various sources, as a result of this raid on Hamburg, from 46 thousand to 100 thousand people died, over 200 thousand were wounded, burned and maimed.
750 thousand people were left homeless.
Dresden 1945
By February 1945, the military-political leadership of the Allies understood that the end of Nazi Germany was a foregone conclusion.
Nevertheless, in January-early February 1945 it was decided to carry out an operation codenamed "Thunderclap".
It provided for a series of massive attacks on the largest cities in Germany in order to create panic and chaos among the civilian population, in order to force the Nazi command to declare immediate surrender.
At the beginning of 1945, cities in the east of Germany were chosen as targets, which were to later be in the zone of responsibility of the Soviet troops: Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.
Dresden - the cultural center of Germany, did not have serious military production and was not of serious interest as a transport hub.
He practically did not have an air defense system: the city was almost never bombed during the entire war (only the railway station).
At the end of the war, the city was overflowing with refugees from the areas of hostilities on the Western and Eastern Fronts (about 200 thousand people for 640 thousand local residents)
Forecasters predicted a clear sky over Dresden in mid-February.
From the RAF memorandum, which the British pilots were familiarized with on the night before the attack on Dresden (13 February):
“Dresden, the 7th largest city in Germany … by far the largest enemy area still not bombed. In the middle of winter, with streams of refugees heading west and troops to be quartered somewhere, living quarters are in short supply as not only workers, refugees and troops need to be accommodated, but also government agencies evacuated from other areas. At one time, widely known for its porcelain production, Dresden has developed into a major industrial center … The aim of the attack is to strike the enemy where he can feel it most, behind a partially collapsed front … and at the same time show the Russians when they arrive in the city what the RAF is capable of.."
From 13 to 15 February 1945, British and American aircraft dropped about 6,000 tons of incendiary and high-explosive bombs on the city.
At the same time, American cover fighters attacked civilians moving along the roads fleeing the fire.
After the start of recovery and rescue work in the practically destroyed city, the American Air Force carried out two more bombing raids: on March 2 - about 1000 and on April 17 - 1700 tons of high-explosive and incendiary bombs.
The camp for Soviet and allied prisoners of war located in the city was almost completely destroyed. The famous American writer Kurt Vonnegut was among the seven American prisoners of war who survived in Dresden that day. His most famous novel, Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade, was inspired by the tragedy in Dresden.
Bombs and fire partially or completely destroyed 80% of city buildings
The exact number of victims of the "fire tornado" in Dresden, apparently, will never be established.
In the most authoritative sources, the figure ranges from 35 to 135 thousand people.
According to the official data of the Historical Department of the Royal Air Force, the death toll has exceeded 50 thousand people.
In the USSR, an estimate of the victims at 135 thousand people was accepted.