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102-564: The Pombaline Baixa is an elegant district, primarily constructed after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake . It takes its name from Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal , the prime minister to Joseph I of Portugal from 1750 to 1777 and key figure of the Enlightenment in Portugal, who took the lead in ordering the rebuilding of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake. The Marquis of Pombal imposed strict conditions on rebuilding

204-461: 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

306-481: 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

408-434: 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

510-455: 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

612-552: 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

714-405: 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

816-408: 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

918-399: 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

1020-445: 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

1122-430: 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

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1224-512: A new royal palace be built in Campo de Ourique as the new royal residence in 1760, but was later abandoned due to a lack of priority or interest in a palace being built in the Campo de Ourique neighborhood of Lisbon. The king and the prime minister immediately launched efforts to rebuild the city. On 4 December 1755, a little more than a month after the earthquake, Manuel da Maia , chief engineer to

1326-517: 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

1428-606: 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

1530-582: 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

1632-489: 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,

1734-481: 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,

1836-505: 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

1938-403: 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

2040-416: A staunch and devout Roman Catholic country. Theologians and philosophers focused and speculated on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of divine judgment . A 2009 study estimated that the earthquake cost between 32 and 48 per cent of Portugal's GDP. Also, "in spite of strict controls, prices and wages remained volatile in the years after the tragedy. The recovery from

2142-474: 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

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2244-586: Is a concept album detailing the story of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The album is entirely sung in Portuguese and explores not only the history but also its effects on Portuguese society, culture and spirituality. The Lisbon earthquake is vividly depicted in Avram Davidson 's Masters of the Maze , one of the many times and places visited by the book's time-traveling protagonists. The board game Lisboa

2346-401: 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

2448-443: 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

2550-477: 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

2652-423: 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

2754-615: Is located near the Serra da Estrela mountain range in central inland Portugal) were visibly affected by the earthquake, the tsunami, or both. The shock waves of the earthquake destroyed part of Covilhã's castle walls and its large towers and damaged several other buildings in Cova da Beira , as well as in Salamanca, Spain . In Setúbal, parts of the Fort of São Filipe de Setúbal were damaged. On

2856-500: 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

2958-583: The Great Lisbon earthquake , impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula , and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints , at around 09:40 local time. In combination with subsequent fires and a tsunami , the earthquake almost completely destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas. Seismologists estimate the Lisbon earthquake had a magnitude of 7.7 or greater on

3060-639: The Pombaline Lower Town ( Baixa Pombalina ), is one of the city's famed attractions. Sections of other Portuguese cities, such as the Vila Real de Santo António in Algarve , were also rebuilt along Pombaline principles. The Casa Pia , a Portuguese institution founded by Maria I (known as A Pia , "Maria the Pious"), and organized by Police Intendant Pina Manique in 1780, was founded following

3162-493: The Portuguese Empire . The event was widely discussed and dwelt upon by European Enlightenment philosophers , and inspired major developments in theodicy . As the first earthquake studied scientifically for its effects over a large area, it led to the birth of modern seismology and earthquake engineering . The earthquake struck on the morning of 1 November 1755, All Saints' Day . Contemporary reports state that

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3264-423: The aerial firebombings of London , Hamburg , Dresden , and Tokyo , and 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

3366-442: 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

3468-467: 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

3570-684: The moment magnitude scale , with its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 km (110 nmi; 120 mi) west-southwest of Cape St. Vincent , a cape in Algarve region, and about 290 km (160 nmi; 180 mi) southwest of Lisbon. Chronologically, it was the third known large-scale earthquake to hit the city (following those of 1332 and 1531 ). Estimates place the death toll in Lisbon around 30,000–40,000. A further 10,000 may have died in Morocco. The earthquake accentuated political tensions in Portugal and profoundly disrupted

3672-561: The 1 November event found them vague and difficult to separate from reports of another local series of earthquakes on 18–19 November . Pereira estimated the total death toll in Portugal, Spain and Morocco from the earthquake and the resulting fires and tsunami at 40,000 to 50,000 people. Eighty-five percent of Lisbon's buildings were destroyed, including famous palaces and libraries, as well as most examples of Portugal's distinctive 16th-century Manueline architecture. Several buildings that had suffered little earthquake damage were destroyed by

3774-476: 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

3876-410: The Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's Candide attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, " the best of all possible worlds ", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a counterexample for Voltaire. Theodor Adorno wrote, "the earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the theodicy of Leibniz " ( Negative Dialectics 361). Jean-Jacques Rousseau

3978-485: 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

4080-544: 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

4182-540: The beginnings of scientific geography in Germany. And certainly the beginnings of seismology". Werner Hamacher has claimed that the earthquake's consequences extended into the vocabulary of philosophy, making the common metaphor of firm "grounding" for philosophers' arguments shaky and uncertain: "Under the impression exerted by the Lisbon earthquake, which touched the European mind in one [of] its more sensitive epochs,

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4284-435: 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

4386-435: 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

4488-494: 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

4590-468: The city, after attending Mass at sunrise, fulfilling the wish of one of the king's daughters to spend the holiday away from Lisbon. After the catastrophe, Joseph I developed a fear of living within walls, and the court was accommodated in a huge complex of tents and pavilions in the hills of Ajuda , then on the outskirts of Lisbon. The king's claustrophobia never waned, and it was only after Joseph's death that his daughter Maria I of Portugal began building

4692-623: The city, and the current grid pattern strongly differs from the organic streetplan that characterised the district before the earthquake. The Pombaline Baixa is one of the first examples of earthquake-resistant construction . Architectural models were tested by having troops march around them to simulate an earthquake. Notable features of Pombaline structures include the Pombaline cage , a symmetrical wood-lattice framework aimed at distributing earthquake force, and inter-terrace walls that are built higher than roof timbers to reduce fire contagion. It

4794-438: 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

4896-404: The coast of North Africa , and struck Martinique and Barbados across the Atlantic Ocean. A three-metre (ten-foot) tsunami hit Cornwall on the southern British coast. Galway , on the west coast of Ireland, was also hit, resulting in partial destruction of the " Spanish Arch " section of the city wall. In County Clare, Aughinish Island was created when a low lying connection to the mainland

4998-424: 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

5100-644: 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

5202-587: The earthquake also led to a rise in the wage premium of construction workers. More significantly, the earthquake became an opportunity to reform the economy and to reduce the economic semi-dependency vis-à-vis Britain." The earthquake and its aftermath strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the European Age of Enlightenment . The noted writer-philosopher Voltaire used the earthquake in Candide and in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on

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5304-562: The earthquake lasted from three and a half to six minutes, causing fissures 5 metres (16 ft) wide in the city center. Survivors rushed to the open space of the docks for safety and watched as the sea receded, revealing a plain of mud littered with lost cargo and shipwrecks. Approximately 40 minutes after the earthquake, a tsunami engulfed the harbor and downtown area, rushing up the Tagus river "so fast that several people riding on horseback ... were forced to gallop as fast as possible to

5406-426: The earthquake, he collected all the information available in news pamphlets and formulated a theory of the causes of earthquakes. Kant's theory, which involved shifts in huge caverns filled with hot gases, though inaccurate, was one of the first systematic attempts to explain earthquakes in natural rather than supernatural terms. According to Walter Benjamin , Kant's slim early book on the earthquake "probably represents

5508-564: The earthquake. A fictionalised version of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake features as a main plot element of the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed Rogue , developed and published by Ubisoft . Notably, a similar earthquake occurs earlier in the story in Port-au-Prince , Haiti , and possibly coincides with a real-world earthquake recorded there in 1751 . The album 1755 by the Portuguese Gothic metal band Moonspell

5610-616: The epicenter was in the Atlantic to the west of the Iberian Peninsula, its exact location has been a subject of considerable debate. Early hypotheses had proposed the Gorringe Ridge , about 320 km (170 nmi; 200 mi) south-west of Lisbon, until simulations showed that a location closer to the shore of Portugal was required to comply with the observed effects of the tsunami. A 1992 seismic reflection survey of

5712-480: 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

5814-423: 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

5916-420: 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

6018-415: 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

6120-512: 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

6222-444: 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

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6324-553: The fire, supplying it with additional air. This would seem to prevent 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

6426-481: 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

6528-464: 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

6630-487: The island of Madeira , Funchal and many smaller settlements suffered significant damage. Almost all of the ports in the Azores archipelago suffered most of their destruction from the tsunami, with the sea penetrating about 150 metres (490 ft) inland. Current and former Portuguese towns in northern Africa were also affected by the earthquake. Places such as Ceuta (ceded by Portugal to Spain in 1668) and Mazagon , where

6732-466: The king, but the aristocracy despised him as an upstart son of a country squire. The prime minister, in turn, disliked the old nobles, whom he considered corrupt and incapable of practical action. Before 1 November 1755, there had been a constant struggle for power and royal favour, but the competent response of the Marquis of Pombal effectively severed the power of the old aristocratic factions. However,

6834-462: 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

6936-701: 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

7038-683: 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 ,

7140-408: The metaphor of ground and tremor completely lost their apparent innocence; they were no longer merely figures of speech" (263). Hamacher claims that the foundational certainty of René Descartes ' philosophy began to shake following the Lisbon earthquake. The earthquake had a major impact on politics. The prime minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal , was the favourite of

7242-493: 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,

7344-452: 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

7446-586: The ocean floor along the Azores–Gibraltar Transform Fault detected a 50-kilometre-long (31 mi) thrust fault southwest of Cape St. Vincent , with a dip-slip throw of more than 1 km (0.62 mi). This structure may have created the primary tectonic event. Economic historian Álvaro Pereira estimated that of Lisbon's population at the time of approximately 200,000 people, 30,000–40,000 were killed. Another 10,000 may have died in Morocco. A 2009 study of contemporary reports relating to

7548-428: 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,

7650-520: 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

7752-410: 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

7854-650: The phenomenon's determining characteristic is a fire with its own storm-force winds from every point of the compass towards 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

7956-497: The priests' accounts, modern scientists were able to reconstruct the event from a scientific perspective. Without the questionnaire designed by the Marquis of Pombal, that would have been impossible. Because Pombal was the first to attempt an objective scientific description of the broad causes and consequences of an earthquake, he is regarded as a forerunner of modern seismological scientists. The 18th-century English Baroque composer Richard Carter composed and published an ode on

8058-429: 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

8160-414: 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

8262-424: The realm, presented his plans for the re-building of Lisbon. Maia presented four options from abandoning Lisbon to building a completely new city. The first, and cheapest, plan was to rebuild the old city using recycled materials. The second and third plans proposed widening certain streets. The fourth option boldly proposed razing the entire Baixa quarter and "laying out new streets without restraint". This last option

8364-461: The royal Ajuda Palace , which still stands on the site of the old tented camp. Like the king, the prime minister Sebastião de Melo (1st Marquis of Pombal) survived the earthquake. When asked what was to be done, Pombal reportedly replied "bury the dead and heal the living", and set about organizing relief and rehabilitation efforts. Firefighters were sent to extinguish the raging flames, and teams of workers and ordinary citizens were ordered to remove

8466-428: 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

8568-459: The silent opposition and resentment of King Joseph I began to rise, which would culminate with the attempted assassination of the king in 1758 and the subsequent elimination of the powerful Duke of Aveiro and the Távora family . In 1752, a Sebastianist predicted that a terrible earthquake would destroy Lisbon on All Saints' Day . After the 1755 Lisbon earthquake struck on All Saints' Day, there

8670-407: The social disarray of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The purpose of the institution was to provide shelter and schooling to children in need. The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia . The earthquake had struck on an important religious holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of

8772-561: The south of the country, in particular the Algarve , destruction was rampant. The tsunami destroyed some coastal fortresses in the Algarve and, at lower levels, it razed several houses. Almost all the coastal towns and villages of the Algarve were heavily damaged, except Faro , which was protected by the sandy banks of Ria Formosa . In Lagos , the waves reached the top of the city walls. Other towns in different Portuguese regions, such as Peniche , Cascais , Setúbal and even Covilhã (which

8874-652: The subsequent fire. The new Lisbon opera house (the " Ópera do Tejo "), opened seven months before, burned to the ground. The Royal Ribeira Palace , which stood just beside the Tagus river in the modern square Praça do Comércio , was destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami. Inside, the 70,000-volume royal library as well as hundreds of works of art, including paintings by Titian , Rubens , and Correggio , were lost. The royal archives disappeared together with detailed historical records of explorations by Vasco da Gama and other early navigators. The palace of Henrique de Meneses, 3rd Marquis of Louriçal , which housed 18,000 books,

8976-710: The thousands of corpses before disease could spread. Contrary to custom and against the wishes of the Church, many corpses were loaded onto barges and buried at sea beyond the mouth of the Tagus. To prevent disorder in the ruined city, the Portuguese Army was deployed and gallows were constructed at high points around the city to deter looters; more than thirty people were publicly executed. The army prevented many able-bodied citizens from fleeing, pressing them into relief and reconstruction work. A project proposed that

9078-707: The tsunami hit hard the coastal fortifications of both towns, in some cases going over it, and flooding the harbor area, were affected. In Spain, the tsunamis swept the Andalusian Atlantic Coast, damaging the city of Cadiz . Shocks from the earthquake were felt throughout Europe as far as Finland and in North Africa, and according to some sources even in Greenland and the Caribbean . Tsunamis as tall as 20 metres (66 ft) swept along

9180-414: The upper grounds for fear of being carried away." It was followed by two more waves. Candles lit in homes and churches all around the city for All Saints' Day were knocked over, starting a fire that developed into a firestorm which burned for hours in the city, asphyxiating people up to 30 metres (98 ft) from the blaze. Lisbon was not the only Portuguese city affected by the catastrophe. Throughout

9282-465: Was a surge of converts to Sebastianism. The prime minister's response was not limited to the practicalities of reconstruction. He ordered a query sent to all parishes of the country regarding the earthquake and its effects. Questions included the following: The answers to those and other questions are still archived in the Torre do Tombo , the national historical archive. Studying and cross-referencing

9384-535: Was also destroyed. The earthquake damaged several major churches in Lisbon, namely Lisbon Cathedral , St Paul's Cathedral , Santa Catarina, São Vicente de Fora , and the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição Velha . The Royal Hospital of All Saints (the largest public hospital at the time) in the Rossio square was consumed by fire and hundreds of patients burned to death. The tomb of national hero Nuno Álvares Pereira

9486-401: Was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life. Immanuel Kant published three separate texts in 1756 on the Lisbon earthquake. As a younger man, fascinated with

9588-464: Was also lost. Visitors to Lisbon may still walk the ruins of the Carmo Convent , which were preserved to remind Lisboners of the destruction. Most of the documentation of the 1722 Algarve earthquake sent to Lisbon for archiving became lost after the fire that followed the 1755 earthquake. The royal family escaped unharmed from the catastrophe: King Joseph I of Portugal and the court had left

9690-539: Was chosen by the king and his minister. In less than a year, the city was cleared of debris. Keen to have a new and perfectly ordered city, the king commissioned the construction of big squares, rectilinear, large avenues and widened streets – the new mottos of Lisbon. The Pombaline buildings are among the earliest seismically protected constructions in Europe. Small wooden models were built for testing, and earthquakes were simulated by marching troops around them. Lisbon's "new" Lower Town, known today as

9792-410: Was created in 2017 by Vital Lacerda and focuses on the reconstruction of Lisbon after the earthquake. Firestorm 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,

9894-518: 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 ),

9996-523: 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

10098-740: Was placed on Portugal's "tentative list" of potential World Heritage Sites on 7 December 2004, which declares it superior to the planned areas in Edinburgh , Turin and London ; in particular, the submission states that the plans for the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire in 1666 "does not implement overall principles" like those achieved in the Pombaline. 38°42′41″N 9°8′14″W  /  38.71139°N 9.13722°W  / 38.71139; -9.13722 1755 Lisbon earthquake The 1755 Lisbon earthquake , also known as

10200-469: 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

10302-428: Was washed away. At Kinsale , several vessels were whirled round in the harbor, and water poured into the marketplace. In 2015, it was determined that the tsunami waves may have reached the coast of Brazil, then a colony of Portugal. Letters sent by Brazilian authorities at the time of the earthquake describe damage and destruction caused by gigantic waves. Although seismologists and geologists have always agreed that

10404-436: 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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