Fire tornados, also known colloquially as fire devils, happen when a fire acquires a vertical rotating column of air. Some can be more than a half a mile tall and contain winds over 100 mph.
In 1923, Great Kanto earthquake in Japan, ignited firestorm thta raged through the city and produced a gigantic fire tornado that killed 38,000 in 15 minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo.
There’s a video report under the cut.
via telegraph, august in whitechapel
