Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World

by John Vaillant

Flashover was now occurring on a massive scale; fire trucks and ambulances, blocked by craters, rubble, and liquefying streets, burst into flame spontaneously. As updrafts surpassed one hundred miles per hour, witnesses observed trees being torn from the ground and civilians being swept into the air, igniting like firebrands before disappearing into the annihilating vortex overhead. Down below, the flames coursing through the now-roofless and -windowless buildings mimicked the behavior of Japanese anagama “climbing” kilns, which are constructed in a series of ascending chambers through which rivers of fire race for hours on end, generating temperatures well over 2,000°F. According to an official with Hamburg’s Fire Protection Police, the only things that withstood the terrific heat were the steel safes built into the walls of banks.