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104-411: A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires . Although the term has been used to describe certain large fires, the phenomenon's determining characteristic is a fire with its own storm-force winds from every point of the compass towards

208-401: A T-34 tank (later replaced with T-55 tank ), called "Big wind". It extinguished 9 fires in 43 days. In fighting a fire at a directly vertical spewing wellhead , high explosives , such as dynamite were used to create a blast wave that pushes the burning fuel and local atmospheric oxygen away from the well. (This is a similar principle to blowing out a candle.) The flame is removed and

312-458: A mesocyclone and induce true tornadoes/ fire whirls . This occurred with the 2002 Durango fire, and probably with the much greater Peshtigo Fire . The greater draft of a firestorm draws in greater quantities of oxygen , which significantly increases combustion, thereby also substantially increasing the production of heat. The intense heat of a firestorm manifests largely as radiated heat ( infrared radiation), which may ignite flammable material at

416-642: A nuclear winter type scenario, to heavy acid rain and even short term immediate global warming were presented at the World Climate Conference in Geneva that November. On January 10, 1991, a paper appearing in the journal Nature stated Paul Crutzen 's calculations predicting that the oil well fires would produce a cloud of smoke covering half the Northern Hemisphere , resulting in widespread cooling similar to nuclear winter; temperatures beneath

520-480: A "firestorm". Despite the disadvantage of nuclear weapons when compared to conventional weapons of lower or comparable yield in terms of effectiveness at starting fires, for the reasons discussed above, one undeniable advantage of nuclear weapons over conventional weapons when it comes to creating fires is that nuclear weapons undoubtedly produce all their thermal and explosive effects in a very short period of time. That is, to use Arthur Harris 's terminology, they are

624-538: A "self-lofting" of the sooty smoke would occur when it absorbed the sun's heat radiation, with little to no scavenging occurring, whereby the black particles of soot would be heated by the sun and lifted/lofted higher and higher into the air, thereby injecting the soot into the stratosphere where it would take years for the sun blocking effect of this aerosol of soot to fall out of the air, and with that, catastrophic ground level cooling and agricultural impacts in Asia and possibly

728-432: A FEMA report suggests that due to the nature of modern U.S. city design and construction, a firestorm is unlikely to occur even after a nuclear detonation because highrise buildings do not lend themselves to the formation of firestorms because of the baffle effect of the structures, and firestorms are unlikely in areas whose modern buildings have totally collapsed, with the exceptions of Tokyo and Hiroshima, because of

832-479: A chronic disorder afflicting military veterans and civilian workers that include fatigue, muscle pain, and cognitive problems; however, studies have indicated that the firemen who capped the wells did not report any of the symptoms that the soldiers experienced. The cause of Gulf War syndrome has since been ascribed to Sarin nerve agent. From the perspective of ground forces, apart from the occasional "oil rain" experienced by troops very close to spewing wells, one of

936-455: A concentrated attack. Coventry was adequately concentrated in point of space, but all the same there was little concentration in point of time, and nothing like the fire tornadoes of Hamburg or Dresden ever occurred in this country. But they did do us enough damage to teach us the principle of concentration, the principle of starting so many fires at the same time that no fire fighting services, however efficiently and quickly they were reinforced by

1040-539: A deadly fire vortex equivalent in size and strength to an EF-3 tornado spawned during the firestorm in Redding, California and caused tornado-like wind damage. Another wildfire which may be characterized as a firestorm was the Camp Fire , which at one point travelled at a speed of up to 76 acres per minute, completely destroying the town of Paradise, California within 24 hours on November 8, 2018. Firestorms were also created by

1144-401: A distance ahead of the fire itself. This also serves to expand the area and the intensity of the firestorm. Violent, erratic wind drafts suck movables into the fire and as is observed with all intense conflagrations, radiated heat from the fire can melt some metals, glass, and turn street tarmac into flammable hot liquid. The very high temperatures ignite anything that might possibly burn, until

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1248-407: A firestorm due to the single point of ignition, serves as an example that, given a densely packed and predominantly wooden and thatch building construction in the urban area, a mass fire is conceivable from the mere incendiary power of no more than a domestic fireplace. On the other hand, the largest nuclear weapon conceivable (more than a gigaton blast yield) will be incapable of igniting a city into

1352-399: A firestorm if the city's properties, namely its fuel density, are not conducive to one developing. It's worth remembering that such a device would still destroy any city in the world today from its shockwave alone, as well as irradiate the ruins to the point of uninhabitability. A device so large could even vaporize the city (and the crust beneath) all at once without such damage qualifying as

1456-722: A global atmospheric level due to the burning oil sources did not transpire, long-lasting ground level oil spill impacts were detrimental to the environment regionally. Forty-six oil wells are estimated to have gushed, and before efforts to cap them began, they were releasing approximately 300,000–400,000 barrels of oil per day, with the last gusher being capped occurring in the latter days of October 1991. The Kuwaiti Oil Minister estimated between twenty-five and fifty million barrels of unburned oil from damaged facilities pooled to create approximately 300 oil lakes, that contaminated around 40 million tons of sand and earth. The mixture of desert sand, unignited oil spilled and soot generated by

1560-444: A manner designed to create the greatest probability of fires from a limited quantity of explosive and incendiary weapons. The so-called two-ton " cookies ", also known as "blockbusters", were dropped first and were intended to rupture water mains, as well as to blow off roofs, doors, and windows, creating an air flow that would feed the fires caused by the incendiaries that would then follow and be dropped, ideally, into holes created by

1664-426: A more continental and global extent, away from the direct vicinity of the fire, wildfire firestorms that produce pyrocumulonimbus cloud events have been found to "surprisingly frequently" generate minor " nuclear winter " effects. These are analogous to minor volcanic winters , with each mass addition of volcanic gases additive in increasing the depth of the "winter" cooling, from near-imperceptible to " year without

1768-506: A nuclear detonation, and are expected to be unlikely in modern European cities. Similarly, one reason for the lack of success in creating a true firestorm in the bombing of Berlin in World War II was that the building density in Berlin was too low to support easy fire spread from building to building. Another reason was that much of the building construction was newer and better than in most of

1872-602: A perfect clone of the city of Hiroshima in 1945, in the conventional bombing of Dresden , the combined Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped a total of 3441.3 tons (approximately 3.4 kilotons ) of ordnance (about half of which was incendiary bombs) on the night of 13–14 February 1945, and this resulted in "more than" 2.5 square miles (6.5 km) of the city being destroyed by fire and firestorm effects according to one authoritative source, or approximately 8 square miles (21 km) by another. In total about 4.5 kilotons of conventional ordnance

1976-559: A quarter of the city. In contrast to these raids, when a single 16-kiloton nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 4.5 square miles (12 km) of the city was destroyed by blast, fire, and firestorm effects. Similarly, Major Cortez F. Enloe, a surgeon in the USAAF who worked with the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), said that the 21-kiloton nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki did not do as much fire damage as

2080-481: A relevant aspect of several historic wildfires. On an intraseasonal level it is established that pyroCbs occur with surprising frequency. In 2002, at least 17 pyroCbs erupted in North America alone. Still to be determined is how often this process occurred in the boreal forests of Asia in 2002. However, it is now established that this most extreme form of pyroconvection, along with more frequent pyrocumulus convection,

2184-480: A report that three major firestorms resulted from Allied conventional bombing campaigns during World War II: Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo. They do not include the comparatively minor firestorms at Kassel, Darmstadt or even Ube into their major firestorm category. Despite later quoting and corroborating Glasstone and Dolan and data collected from these smaller firestorms: based on World War II experience with mass fires resulting from air raids on Germany and Japan,

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2288-559: A result if the Iraqis went through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells and they burned for a few months. Later when Operation Desert Storm had begun, S. Fred Singer and Carl Sagan discussed the possible environmental impacts of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline . Sagan again argued that some of the effects of the smoke could be similar to

2392-623: A short documentary titled Kuwait: Bringing Back the Sun that summarizes and focuses upon the fire fighting efforts, which were dubbed the Al-Awda ( Arabic for "The Return") project. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq , approximately 40 oil wells were set on fire in the Persian Gulf within Iraq by Iraqi forces, ostensibly to hinder the invasion. The Kuwait Wild Well Killers , who successfully extinguished 41 of

2496-496: A similar effect. For instance, methane explosions enforced the Peshtigo Fire . Firestorms will produce hot buoyant smoke clouds of primarily water vapor that will form condensation clouds as it enters the cooler upper atmosphere, generating what is known as pyrocumulus clouds ("fire clouds") or, if large enough, pyrocumulonimbus ("fire storm") clouds. For example, the black rain that began to fall approximately 20 minutes after

2600-402: A single ignition, whereas firestorms have only been observed where large numbers of fires are burning simultaneously over a relatively large area, with the important caveat that the density of simultaneously burning fires needs to be above a critical threshold for a firestorm to form (a notable example of large numbers of fires burning simultaneously over a large area without a firestorm developing

2704-413: A statement made by a Kuwait Oil Company official. At the world prices at the time it would amount to US$ 157.5 billion. On March 21, 1991, a Royal Saudi Air Force C-130 H crashed in heavy smoke due to the Kuwaiti oil fires on approach to Ras Mishab Airport , Saudi Arabia . 92 Senegalese soldiers and 6 Saudi crew members were killed, the largest accident among Coalition forces. The smoke screening

2808-467: A summer " levels. A very important but poorly understood aspect of wildfire behavior are pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) firestorm dynamics and their atmospheric impact. These are well illustrated in the Black Saturday case study below. The "pyroCb" is a fire-started or fire-augmented thunderstorm that in its most extreme manifestation injects huge abundances of smoke and other biomass-burning emissions into

2912-401: Is a technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices , rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. Such raids often employ both incendiary devices and high explosives. The high explosive destroys roofs, making it easier for the incendiary devices to penetrate the structures and cause fires. The high explosives also disrupt

3016-443: Is important, given that fire-atmosphere feedback processes can exacerbate the conditions associated with dangerous fire behavior. Additionally, understanding the combined effects of heat, moisture, and aerosols on cloud microphysics is important for a range of weather and climate processes, including in relation to improved modeling and prediction capabilities. It is essential to fully explore events such as these to properly characterize

3120-477: Is largely dependent not on the yield of the weapons used, but on the conditions in and around the city itself, with the fuel loading per square meter value of the city being one of the major factors. A few hundred strategically placed incendiary devices would be sufficient to start a firestorm in a city if the conditions for a firestorm, namely high fuel loading, are already inherent to the city (see Bat bomb ). The Great Fire of London in 1666, although not forming

3224-421: Is likely this led the nuclear weapon effects experts Franklin D'Olier , Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan to state that the same fire damage suffered at Hiroshima could have instead been produced by about 1 kiloton/1,000 tons of incendiary bombs. The second factor explaining the non-intuitive break in the expected results of greater explosive yield producing greater city fire damage is that city fire damage

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3328-499: Is not expected to change significantly. The more spot fires, the bigger the increase in burning rate and flame height. Black Saturday is just one of many varieties of firestorms with these pyroconvective processes and they are still being widely studied and compared. In addition to indicating this strong coupling on Black Saturday between the atmosphere and the fire activity, the lightning observations also suggest considerable differences in pyroCb characteristics between Black Saturday and

3432-408: Is often a fire investigation to determine the cause of the fire. During a conflagration a significant movement of air and combustion products occurs. Hot gaseous products of combustion move upward, causing the influx of more dense cold air to the combustion zone. Sometimes, the influx is so intense that the fire grows into a firestorm . Inside a building, the intensity of gas exchange depends on

3536-668: The Northern Hemisphere as a whole. In retrospect, it is now known that smoke from the Kuwait oil fires only affected the weather pattern throughout the Arabian Gulf and surrounding region during the periods that the fires were burning in 1991, with lower atmospheric winds blowing the smoke along the eastern half of the Arabian Peninsula, and cities such as Dhahran and Riyadh , and countries such as Bahrain experienced days with smoke filled skies and carbon soot rainout/fallout. Thus

3640-441: The atomic bombing of Hiroshima produced in total 5–10 cm of black soot-filled rain in a 1–3 hour period. Moreover, if the conditions are right, a large pyrocumulus can grow into a pyrocumulonimbus and produce lightning , which could potentially set off further fires. Apart from city and forest fires, pyrocumulus clouds can also be produced by volcanic eruptions due to the comparable amounts of hot buoyant material formed. On

3744-416: The atomic bombing of Hiroshima . A firestorm is created as a result of the stack effect as the heat of the original fire draws in more and more of the surrounding air. This draft can be quickly increased if a low-level jet stream exists over or near the fire. As the updraft mushrooms, strong inwardly-directed gusty winds develop around the fire, supplying it with additional air. This would seem to prevent

3848-463: The firebombing raids of World War II in cities like Hamburg and Dresden . Of the two nuclear weapons used in combat , only Hiroshima resulted in a firestorm. In contrast, experts suggest that due to the nature of modern U.S. city design and construction, a firestorm is unlikely after a nuclear detonation. The minimum requirements for a firestorm to develop: no.4 A minimum burning area of about 0.5 square miles (1.3 km) . Firebombing

3952-547: The Arabian Gulf, which became known as the Gulf War oil spill . The fires were the subject of a 1992 IMAX documentary film , Fires of Kuwait , which was nominated for an Academy Award . The film includes footage of the Hungarian team using their jet turbine extinguisher. Lessons of Darkness is a 1992 film by director Werner Herzog that explores the ravaged oil fields of post-Gulf War Kuwait. Bechtel Corporation produced

4056-470: The Canberra fire event. Differences between pyroCb events, such as for the Black Saturday and Canberra cases, indicate considerable potential for improved understanding of pyroconvection based on combining different data sets as presented in the research of the Black Saturday pyroCb's (including in relation to lightning, radar, precipitation, and satellite observations). A greater understanding of pyroCb activity

4160-541: The Gulf War". The burning wells needed to be extinguished as, without active efforts, Kuwait would lose billions of dollars in oil revenues. It was predicted by experts that the fires would burn for between two and five years before losing pressure and going out on their own. The companies responsible for extinguishing the fires initially were Bechtel , Red Adair Company (now sold to Global Industries of Louisiana ), Boots and Coots , and Wild Well Control . Safety Boss

4264-479: The President "laughed and said he understood." This break from the linear expectation of more fire damage to occur after greater explosive yield is dropped can be easily explained by two major factors. First, the order of blast and thermal events during a nuclear explosion is not ideal for the creation of fires. In an incendiary bombing raid, incendiary weapons followed after high-explosive blast weapons were dropped, in

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4368-539: The ability of firefighters to douse the fires. Although incendiary bombs have been used to destroy buildings since the start of gunpowder warfare, World War II saw the first use of strategic bombing from the air to destroy the ability of the enemy to wage war. London , Coventry , and many other British cities were firebombed during the Blitz . Most large German cities were extensively firebombed starting in 1942, and almost all large Japanese cities were firebombed during

4472-460: The allies commenced air strikes against Iraqi targets. On February 8, satellite images detected the first smoke from burning oil wells. The number of oil fires peaked between February 22 and 24, when the allied ground offensive began. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 's report to Congress , "the retreating Iraqi army set fire to or damaged over 700 oil wells, storage tanks, refineries, and facilities in Kuwait." Estimates placed

4576-413: The arrival of the ground war. The Iraqi military combat engineers also released oil into low-lying areas for defensive purposes against infantry and mechanized units along Kuwait's southern border, by constructing several "fire trenches" roughly one kilometre (0.62 mi) long, and three metres (9.8 ft) meters wide and deep to impede the advance of Coalition ground forces. The military use of

4680-406: The base of the fire. The extinguishing water was supplied to the arid desert region by re-purposing the oil pipelines that prior to the arson attack had pumped oil from the wells to the Persian Gulf . The pipeline had been mildly damaged but, once repaired, its flow was reversed to pump Persian gulf seawater to the burning oil wells. The extinguishing rate was approximately 1 every 7–10 days at

4784-535: The burning oil wells formed layers of hard "tarcrete", which covered nearly five percent of Kuwait's land mass. Cleaning efforts were led by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and the Arab Oil Co., who tested a number of technologies including the use of petroleum-degrading bacteria on the oil lakes. Vegetation in most of the contaminated areas adjoining the oil lakes began recovering by 1995, but

4888-435: The burning rates, heat release rates, and flame height until the distance between them reaches a critical level. At the critical separation distance, the flames will begin to merge and burn with the maximum rate and flame height. As these spot fires continue to grow together, the burning and heat release rates will finally start to decrease but remain at a much elevated level compared to the independent spot fire. The flame height

4992-435: The category of a "firestorm" due to the extreme fire behavior and relationship with atmospheric responses that occurred during the fires. This major wildfire event led to a number of distinct electrified pyrocumulonimbus plume clusters ranging roughly 15 km high. These plumes were proven susceptible to striking new spot fires ahead of the main fire front. The newly ignited fires by this pyrogenic lightning further highlight

5096-493: The city damaged by the blast. Large wildfire conflagrations are distinct from firestorms if they have moving fire fronts which are driven by the ambient wind and do not develop their own wind system like true firestorms. (This does not mean that a firestorm must be stationary; as with any other convective storm, the circulation may follow surrounding pressure gradients and winds, if those lead it onto fresh fuel sources.) Furthermore, non-firestorm conflagrations can develop from

5200-435: The city; for Nagasaki, a single 21 kiloton nuclear bomb dropped on the city could have been estimated to be caused by 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs from 125 B-29s. It may seem counterintuitive that the same amount of fire damage caused by a nuclear weapon could have instead been produced by smaller total yield of thousands of incendiary bombs; however, World War II experience supports this assertion. For example, although not

5304-702: The cloud would be reduced by 5–10 degrees Celsius after 100 days. This was followed by articles printed in the Wilmington Morning Star and the Baltimore Sun newspapers in mid to late January 1991, with the popular television scientist personality of the time, Carl Sagan , who was also the co-author of the first few nuclear winter papers along with Richard P. Turco , John W. Birks, Alan Robock and Paul Crutzen together collectively stated that they expected catastrophic nuclear winter -like effects with continental sized impacts of "sub-freezing" temperatures as

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5408-509: The comparatively minimal atmospheric effects remaining limited to the Arabian Gulf region, with smoke plumes, in general, lofting to about 10,000 feet (3,000 m) and a few times as high as 20,000 feet (6,100 m). Along with Singer's televised critique, Richard D. Small criticized the initial Nature paper in a reply on March 7, 1991, arguing along similar lines as Singer. Sagan later conceded in his book The Demon-Haunted World that his prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it

5512-423: The convective column. Thus the fire front is essentially stationary and the outward spread of fire is prevented by the in-rushing wind. A firestorm is characterized by strong to gale-force winds blowing toward the fire, everywhere around the fire perimeter, an effect which is caused by the buoyancy of the rising column of hot gases over the intense mass fire, drawing in cool air from the periphery. These winds from

5616-455: The destruction of said wells. It is also hypothesized that Iraq decided to destroy the oil fields to achieve a military advantage, believing the intense smoke plumes serving as smoke screens created by the burning oil wells would inhibit Coalition offensive airstrikes , foil allied precision guided weapons and spy satellites, and could screen Iraq's military movements. Furthermore, it is thought that Iraq's military leaders may have regarded

5720-643: The discovery of smoke in the stratosphere and the pyroCb, only a small number of individual case studies and modeling experiments have been performed. Hence, there is still much to be learned about the pyroCb and its importance. With this work scientists have attempted to reduce the unknowns by revealing several additional occasions when pyroCbs were either a significant or sole cause for the type of stratospheric pollution usually attributed to volcanic injections. The same underlying combustion physics can also apply to man-made structures such as cities during war or natural disaster. Firestorms are thought to have been part of

5824-471: The dry climate has also partially solidified some of the lakes. Over time the oil has continued to sink into the sand, with potential consequences for Kuwait's small groundwater resources. The land based Kuwaiti oil spill surpassed the Lakeview Gusher , which spilled nine million barrels in 1910, as the largest oil spill in recorded history. Six to eight million barrels of oil were directly spilled into

5928-615: The effects of a nuclear winter, with smoke lofting into the stratosphere , a region of the atmosphere beginning around 43,000 feet (13,000 m) above sea level at Kuwait, resulting in global effects and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the Year Without a Summer . He reported on initial modeling estimates that forecast impacts extending to south Asia, and perhaps to

6032-545: The emissions of carbon dioxide were 2% of global emissions and emissions of soot reached 3400 metric tons per day. In a paper in the DTIC archive, published in 2000, it states that "Calculations based on smoke from Kuwaiti oil fires in May and June 1991 indicate that combustion efficiency was about 96% in producing carbon dioxide . While, with respect to the incomplete combustion fraction, Smoke particulate matter accounted for 2% of

6136-480: The epitome of an air raid guaranteed to be concentrated in "point in time". In contrast, early in World War II, the ability to achieve conventional air raids concentrated in "point of time" depended largely upon the skill of pilots to remain in formation, and their ability to hit the target whilst at times also being under heavy fire from anti-aircraft fire from the cities below. Nuclear weapons largely remove these uncertain variables. Therefore, nuclear weapons reduce

6240-554: The eve of the Iraqi invasion, Kuwait had set production quotas to almost 1.9 million barrels per day (300,000 m /d), which coincided with a sharp drop in the price of oil. By the summer of 1990, Kuwaiti overproduction had become a serious point of contention with Iraq. Some analysts have speculated that one of Saddam Hussein 's main motivations in invading Kuwait was to punish the ruling al-Sabah family in Kuwait for not stopping its policy of overproduction, as well as his reasoning behind

6344-422: The extended conventional airstrikes on Hamburg . American historian Gabriel Kolko also echoed this sentiment: During November 1944 American B-29's began their first incendiary bomb raids on Tokyo, and on 9 March 1945, wave upon wave dropped masses of small incendiaries containing an early version of napalm on the city's population....Soon small fires spread, connected, grew into a vast firestorm that sucked

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6448-419: The feedback loops of influence between the atmosphere and fire behavior on Black Saturday associated with these pyroconvective processes. The examinations presented here for Black Saturday demonstrate that fires ignited by lightning generated within the fire plume can occur at much larger distances ahead of the main fire front — of up to 100 km. In comparison to fires ignited by burning debris transported by

6552-414: The fire behavior, pyroCb dynamics, and resultant influence on conditions in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). It is also important to accurately characterize this transport process so that cloud, chemistry, and climate models have a firm basis on which to evaluate the pyrogenic source term, pathway from the boundary layer through cumulus cloud, and exhaust from the convective column. Since

6656-494: The fire brigades of other towns could get them under control." According to physicist David Hafemeister, firestorms occurred after about 5% of all fire-bombing raids during World War II (but he does not explain if this is a percentage based on both Allied and Axis raids, or combined Allied raids, or U.S. raids alone). In 2005, the American National Fire Protection Association stated in

6760-443: The fire plume, these only go ahead of the fire front up to about 33 km, noting that this also has implications in relation to understanding the maximum rate of spread of a wildfire. This finding is important for the understanding and modeling of future firestorms and the large scale areas that can be affected by this phenomenon. As the individual spot fires grow together, they will begin to interact. This interaction will increase

6864-417: The fire. Conflagrations can cause casualties including deaths or injuries from burns , trauma due to collapse of structures and attempts to escape, and smoke inhalation . Firefighting is the practice of extinguishing a conflagration, protecting life and property and minimizing damage and injury. One of the goals of fire prevention is to avoid conflagrations. When a conflagration is extinguished, there

6968-411: The fires emitted white to grey plumes, while the remainder emitted plumes with colors between grey and black. For example, one Gulf War veteran stated: It was like a cloudy day all day long, in fact, we didn’t realize it was smoke at first. The smoke was about 500 feet above us, so we couldn’t see the sky. However, we could see horizontally for long distances with no problem. We knew it was smoke when

7072-473: The firestorm from spreading on the wind, but the tremendous turbulence created may also cause the strong surface inflow winds to change direction erratically. Firestorms resulting from the bombardment of urban areas in the Second World War were generally confined to the areas initially seeded with incendiary devices, and the firestorm did not appreciably spread outward. A firestorm may also develop into

7176-481: The firestorm runs low on fuel. A firestorm does not appreciably ignite material at a distance ahead of itself; more accurately, the heat desiccates those materials and makes them more vulnerable to ignition by embers or firebrands, increasing the rate of fire spotting. During the formation of a firestorm many fires merge to form a single convective column of hot gases rising from the burning area and strong, fire-induced, radial (inwardly directed) winds are associated with

7280-464: The firestorm's wind system active drops below the threshold level, at which time the firestorm breaks up into isolated conflagrations . In Australia, the prevalence of eucalyptus trees that have oil in their leaves results in forest fires that are noted for their extremely tall and intense flame front. Hence the bush fires appear more as a firestorm than a simple forest fire. Sometimes, emission of combustible gases from swamps (e.g.,  methane ) has

7384-487: The following fires are often described as firestorms, but that has not been corroborated by any reliable references: Conflagration A conflagration is a large fire . Conflagrations often damage human life, animal life, health, and/or property. A conflagration can begin accidentally or be intentionally created ( arson ). A very large fire can produce a firestorm , in which the central column of rising heated air induces strong inward winds, which supply oxygen to

7488-582: The fuel burned, of which 0.4% was soot." (With the remaining 2% being oil that did not undergo any initial combustion). Peter V. Hobbs also narrated a short amateur documentary titled Kuwait Oil Fires that followed the University of Washington /UW's "Cloud and Aerosol Research Group" as they flew through, around and above the smoke clouds and took samples, measurements, and video of the smoke clouds in their Convair C-131 . Aerial laboratory. Although scenarios that predicted long-lasting environmental impacts on

7592-626: The fuel can continue to spill out without igniting. Generally, explosives were placed within 55 gallon drums , the explosives surrounded by fire retardant chemicals, and then the drums are wrapped with insulating material with a horizontal crane being used to bring the drum as close to the burning area as possible. The firefighting teams titled their occupation as "Operation Desert Hell" after Operation Desert Storm . Immediately following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, predictions were made of an environmental disaster stemming from Iraqi threats to blow up captured Kuwaiti oil wells. Speculation ranging from

7696-464: The heat, smoke, and debris from hundreds of burning oil wells as presenting a formidable area denial obstacle to Coalition forces. The onset of the oil well destruction supports this military dimension to the sabotage of the wells; for example, during the early stage of the Coalition air campaign, the number of oil wells afire was relatively small but the number increased dramatically in late February with

7800-465: The immediate consequence of the arson sabotage was a dramatic regional decrease in air quality , causing respiratory problems for many Kuwaitis and those in neighboring countries. According to the 1992 study from Peter Hobbs and Lawrence Radke, daily emissions of sulfur dioxide (which can generate acid rain ) from the Kuwaiti oil fires were 57% of that from electric utilities in the United States,

7904-646: The land based fires should also be seen in context with the coinciding, deliberate, sea based Gulf War oil spill , the apparent strategic goal of which was to foil a potential amphibious landing by U.S. Marines . As an international coalition under United States command assembled in anticipation of an invasion of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, the Iraqi regime decided to destroy as much of Kuwait's oil reserves and infrastructure as possible before withdrawing from that country. As early as December 1990, Iraqi forces placed explosive charges on Kuwaiti oil wells. The wells were systematically sabotaged beginning on January 16, 1991, when

8008-458: The last six months of World War II. As Sir Arthur Harris , the officer commanding RAF Bomber Command from 1942 through to the end of the war in Europe, pointed out in his post-war analysis, although many attempts were made to create deliberate man-made firestorms during World War II, few attempts succeeded: "The Germans again and again missed their chance, ...of setting our cities ablaze by

8112-700: The lower stratosphere. The observed hemispheric spread of smoke and other biomass-burning emissions has known important climate consequences. Direct attribution of the stratospheric aerosols to pyroCbs only occurred in the last decade. Such an extreme injection by thunderstorms was previously judged to be unlikely because the extratropical tropopause is considered to be a strong barrier to convection. Two recurring themes have developed as pyroCb research unfolds. First, puzzling stratospheric aerosol-layer observations—and other layers reported as volcanic aerosol can now be explained in terms of pyroconvection. Second, pyroCb events occur surprisingly frequently, and they are likely

8216-660: The mechanism of large urban fires, such as accompanied the 1755 Lisbon earthquake , the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake . Genuine firestorms are occurring more frequently in California wildfires, such as the 1991 wildfire disaster in Oakland, California , and the October 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, California. During the July–August 2018 Carr Fire ,

8320-493: The minimum requirements for a firestorm to develop are considered by some authorities to be the following: (1) at least 8 pounds of combustibles per square foot of fire area (40 kg per square meter), (2) at least half of the structures in the area on fire simultaneously, (3) a wind of less than 8 miles per hour at the time, and (4) a minimum burning area of about half a square mile. Unlike the highly combustible World War II cities that firestormed from conventional and nuclear weapons,

8424-492: The more commonly experienced effects of the oil field fires were the ensuing smoke plumes which rose into the atmosphere and then precipitated or fell out of the air via dry deposition and by rain. The pillar-like plumes frequently broadened and joined up with other smoke plumes at higher altitudes, producing a cloudy grey overcast effect, as only about 10% of all the fires corresponding with those that originated from "oil lakes" produced pure black soot filled plumes, 25% of

8528-452: The mucous from our nostrils started to look black ..." A paper published in 2000 analyzed the degree of exposure by troops to particulate matter , including soot. However, the paper focused more-so on silica sand, which can produce silicosis . The paper included troop medical records, and in its conclusion: "A literature review indicated negligible to nonexistent health risk from other inhaled particulate material (other than silica) during

8632-447: The nature of their densely-packed "flimsy" wooden buildings in World War II. There is also a sizable difference between the fuel loading of World War II cities that firestormed and that of modern cities, where the quantity of combustibles per square meter in the fire area in the latter is below the necessary requirement for a firestorm to form (40 kg/m). Therefore, firestorms are not to be expected in modern North American cities after

8736-410: The northern hemisphere as well. Singer, on the other hand, said that calculations showed that the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet (910 m) and then be rained out after about three to five days and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited. Both height estimates made by Singer and Sagan turned out to be wrong, albeit with Singer's narrative being closer to what transpired, with

8840-483: The number of oil well fires from 605 to 732. A further thirty-four wells had been destroyed by heavy coalition bombing in January. The Kuwait Petroleum Company's estimate as of September 1991 was that there had been 610 fires, out of a total of 749 facilities damaged or on fire along with an unspecified number of oil filled low-lying areas, such as "oil lakes" and "fire trenches ". These fires constituted approximately 50% of

8944-427: The old German city centers. Modern building practices in the Berlin of World War II led to more effective firewalls and fire-resistant construction. Mass firestorms never proved to be possible in Berlin. No matter how heavy the raid or what kinds of firebombs were dropped, no true firestorm ever developed. The incendiary effects of a nuclear explosion do not present any especially characteristic features. In principle,

9048-515: The oxygen out of the lower atmosphere. The bomb raid was a 'success' for the Americans; they killed 125,000 Japanese in one attack. The Allies bombed Hamburg and Dresden in the same manner, and Nagoya , Osaka , Kobe , and Tokyo again on May 24....in fact the atomic bomb used against Hiroshima was less lethal than massive fire bombing....Only its technique was novel—nothing more....There was another difficulty posed by mass conventional bombing, and that

9152-409: The perimeter blow the fire brands into the burning area and tend to cool the unignited fuel outside the fire area so that ignition of material outside the periphery by radiated heat and fire embers is more difficult, thus limiting fire spread. At Hiroshima, this inrushing to feed the fire is said to have prevented the firestorm perimeter from expanding, and thus the firestorm was confined to the area of

9256-426: The prior blast weapons, such as into attic and roof spaces. On the other hand, nuclear weapons produce effects that are in the reverse order, with thermal effects and "flash" occurring first, which are then followed by the slower blast wave. It is for this reason that conventional incendiary bombing raids are considered to be a great deal more efficient at causing mass fires than nuclear weapons of comparable yield. It

9360-414: The question of whether a city will firestorm or not to a smaller number of variables, to the point of becoming entirely reliant on the intrinsic properties of the city, such as fuel loading, and predictable atmospheric conditions, such as wind speed, in and around the city, and less reliant on the unpredictable possibility of hundreds of bomber crews acting together successfully as a single unit. Portions of

9464-427: The same overall result with respect to destruction of life and property can be achieved by the use of conventional incendiary and high-explosive bombs . It has been estimated, for example, that the same fire ferocity and damage produced at Hiroshima by one 16-kiloton nuclear bomb from a single B-29 could have instead been produced by about 1,200 tons/1.2 kilotons of incendiary bombs from 220 B-29s distributed over

9568-470: The size and location of openings in walls and floors, the ceiling height, and the amount and characteristics of the combustible materials . Kuwaiti oil fires The dispute between Iraq and Kuwait over alleged slant-drilling in the Rumaila oil field was one of the reasons for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 . In addition, Kuwait had been producing oil above treaty limits established by OPEC . By

9672-428: The start of efforts but then with experience gained and the removal of the mine fields that surrounded the burning wells, the rate increased to 2 or more per day. For stubborn oil well fires , the use of a gas turbine to blast a large volume of water at high velocity at the fire proved popular with firefighters in Kuwait and was brought to the region by Hungarians equipped with MiG-21 engines mounted originally on

9776-579: The storm's center, where the air is heated and then ascends. The Black Saturday bushfires , the 2021 British Columbia wildfires , and the Great Peshtigo Fire are possible examples of forest fires with some portion of combustion due to a firestorm, as is the Great Hinckley Fire . Firestorms have also occurred in cities, usually due to targeted explosives , such as in the aerial firebombings of London , Hamburg , Dresden , and Tokyo , and

9880-706: The total number of oil well fires in the history of the petroleum industry , and temporarily damaged or destroyed approximately 85% of the wells in every major Kuwaiti oil field. Concerted efforts to bring the fires and other damage under control began in April 1991. During the uncontrolled burning phase from February to April, various sources estimated that the ignited wellheads burnt through between four and six million barrels of crude oil , and between seventy and one hundred million cubic meters of natural gas per day. Seven months later, 441 facilities had been brought under control, while 308 remained uncontrolled. The last well

9984-437: Was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4–6 °C over the Arabian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared." At the peak of the fires, the smoke absorbed 75 to 80% of the sun's radiation. The particles rose to a maximum of 20,000 feet (6,100 m), but were scavenged by cloud condensation nuclei from the atmosphere relatively quickly. Sagan and his colleagues expected that

10088-470: Was also used by Iraqi anti-armor forces to a successful extent in the Battle of Phase Line Bullet , having aided in achieving the element of surprise against advancing Bradley IFVs , along with increasing the general fog of war . The fires burned out of control because of the dangers of sending in firefighting crews during the war. Land mines had been placed in areas around the oil wells and military demining

10192-464: Was capped on November 6, 1991. The total amount of oil burned is generally estimated at one billion barrels or just below one percent of Kuwait's entire supply of 104 billion barrels. Daily global oil consumption in 2022 is about 99.4 million barrels; the oil lost to combustion would last 10 days at modern usage rates. In March 1991 the accumulated financial losses were estimated to be as much as 10% of 90 billion barrels of Kuwait oil reserves based on

10296-505: Was dropped on the city over a number of months during 1945 and this resulted in approximately 15 square miles (39 km) of the city being destroyed by blast and fire effects. During the Operation MeetingHouse firebombing of Tokyo on 9–10 March 1945, 279 of the 334 B-29s dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary and high-explosive bombs on the city, resulting in the destruction of over 10,000 acres of buildings—16 square miles (41 km),

10400-513: Was its very success, a success that made the two modes of human destruction qualitatively identical in fact and in the minds of the American military . "I was a little fearful", [Secretary of War] Stimson told [President] Truman , "that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength." To this

10504-410: Was necessary before the fires could be put out. Around 5 million barrels (790,000 m ) of oil were lost each day. Eventually, privately contracted crews extinguished the fires, at a total cost of US$ 1.5 billion to Kuwait. By that time, however, the fires had burned for approximately ten months, causing widespread pollution. The fires have been linked with what was later deemed Gulf War syndrome ,

10608-464: Was the Kuwaiti oil fires of 1991, where the distance between individual fires was too large). The high temperatures within the firestorm zone ignite most everything that might possibly burn, until a tipping point is reached, that is, upon running low on fuel, which occurs after the firestorm has consumed so much of the available fuel within the firestorm zone that the necessary fuel density required to keep

10712-462: Was the fourth company to arrive but ended up extinguishing and capping the most wells of any other company: 180 of the 600. Other companies including Cudd Well/Pressure Control, Neal Adams Firefighters, and Kuwait Wild Well Killers were also contracted. According to Larry H. Flak, a petroleum engineer for Boots and Coots International Well Control, 90% of all the 1991 fires in Kuwait were put out with nothing but sea water, sprayed from powerful hoses at

10816-435: Was widespread and persisted for at least two months. The characteristic injection height of pyroCb emissions is the upper troposphere , and a subset of these storms pollutes the lower stratosphere . Thus, a new appreciation for the role of extreme wildfire behavior and its atmospheric ramifications is now coming into focus. The Black Saturday bushfires are some of Australia's most destructive and deadly fires that fall under

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