Fire whirls are a natural phenomenon formed when air begins to rotate around a fire causing a vertice to form, similar to a dust devil or tornado. The strongest natural fire whirls can reach up to a level 1 tornado in winds and move in an erratic unpredictable manner up to a quarter mile in front of the main fire. Man made fire whirls like that of the bombing of Hamburg can also reach 5km high and 2.5 km wide. Another similar fire whirl in Tokyo 1923 killed 38,000. To explore
fire whirls I created a demonstration using a motorized turn table with metal sculpting mesh formed to a cylinder to create the initial rotation in the air. The fire was just an isopropyl alcohol soaked sponge in an inverted metal tin. There was no particular 'lab' in that I wasn't trying to measure a change in the variables rather it was along with a brief write up a way to culminate what I had learned about fire whirls into a way where I could see it actually form in a controlled setting. This write up can be seen and the button link below and videos of the fire whirl in the video above.
fire whirls I created a demonstration using a motorized turn table with metal sculpting mesh formed to a cylinder to create the initial rotation in the air. The fire was just an isopropyl alcohol soaked sponge in an inverted metal tin. There was no particular 'lab' in that I wasn't trying to measure a change in the variables rather it was along with a brief write up a way to culminate what I had learned about fire whirls into a way where I could see it actually form in a controlled setting. This write up can be seen and the button link below and videos of the fire whirl in the video above.