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Asharq Al-Awsat Visits Belgian City That Is ‘Going to Save the World’

Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium | Photo: Reuters
Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium | Photo: Reuters
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Asharq Al-Awsat Visits Belgian City That Is ‘Going to Save the World’

Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium | Photo: Reuters
Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium | Photo: Reuters

Located a short 22 km away from Brussels, Puurs is a modest Belgian city with a population of 17,000 that is mostly invested in agriculture. Generally calm and elegant, Puurs is known to come alive and busy on the weekends when tourists flock into the city to visit World War II’s Fort Breendonk.

As of late November, Puurs started welcoming dozens of journalists and media broadcasters who made for the city after US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that its main factory there will be manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer will be manufacturing the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the German biotechnology company BioNTech and distributing it across Europe. The first batch of the vaccine has already been delivered to the UK last Thursday.

A spokesperson from Pfizer confirmed that the company expects to globally produce up to 50 million vaccine doses by the end of this year.

Correspondents from British media began arriving in Puurs after Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed that the final green light was given to rolling out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and that the UK will begin distributing it as of Tuesday.

Pfizer's decision to set up its main European factory in Belgium dates back to the early 1950s.

Most major US pharmaceuticals were attracted to Belgium’s long-standing expertise in chemical industries, sea, and air transportation network, and geographic location which is strategically nestled at Europe’s center.

Locals at Puurs who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat have expressed pride in Pfizer’s achievements.

It is worth noting that, after deciding to go into full-throttle on production to meet Europe’s vaccine demand, Pfizer added 300 employees to its original 3,000 at the Puurs facility.

Koen Van den Heuvel, who has been the Mayor of Puurs for the past 24 years, said locals feel a great sense of pride that something that could save millions of lives is being manufactured in their town.

"I feel the pride of the inhabitants and we say now that we are going to save the world!" Van Der Heuvel told Euronews.

"There is new hope. I hope that our town can have one of the 50 vaccination centers because for me it is very important that people can go near their home for a vaccine."

Located in Belgium's Flanders region, the town is home to a cluster of pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer.

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World

Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
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Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP

As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather.

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could explode in size. The advisory, which runs into Wednesday, didn’t mention tornadoes, but meteorologist Todd Hall said they're possible given the extreme conditions.

 

A look at fire tornadoes according to The AP.

What is a fire tornado? Fire whirl, fire devil, fire tornado or even firenado — scientists, firefighters and regular folks use multiple terms to describe similar phenomena, and they don’t always agree on what’s what. Some say fire whirls are formed only by heat, while fire tornadoes involve clouds generated by the fire itself.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s glossary of wildland fire terms doesn’t include an entry for fire tornado, but it defines a fire whirl as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris and flame,” and says large whirls “have the intensity of a small tornado.”

Wildfires with turbulent plumes can produce clouds that in turn can produce lightning or a vortex of ash, smoke and flames, said Leila Carvalho, professor of meteorology and climatology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“There is a rotation caused by very strong wind shear and a very hot, localized low-pressure system,” she said.

What is a fire tornado capable of? Fire tornadoes can make fires stronger by sucking up air, Carvalho said. “It creates a tornado track, and wherever this goes, the destruction is like any other tornado.”

In 2018, a fire tornado the size of three football fields killed a firefighter as it exploded in what already was a vast and devastating wildfire near near Redding, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of San Francisco in northern California. Scientists later described an ice-capped cloud that reached 7 miles (11 km) into the air and caused winds up to 143 mph (230 kph).

Research also suggests fire tornadoes can carry airborne embers, also called firebrands, over long distances, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They also can change the fire’s behavior, he said.

“That’s also something that is dangerous and scary for first responders, or really anyone,” he said. “It can change and maybe go in a different direction.”

The interaction between wind, the fire plume and topography determines whether a tornado will develop, he said. For example, sometimes a certain topography will restrict airflow in such a way that a spiral pattern develops.

Can you make one in a lab? Together with San José State University, Worcester Polytech is part of a Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center. In the lab in Worcester, researchers have created small fire tornadoes by putting up walls around a fire or arranging a bunch of little fires that together restrict airflow. But that’s on a much smaller scale than what’s happening with the wildfires.

“We’ve got the biggest fire lab in the US for a university, but we cannot get something the size of what’s been reported at these fires,” he said. “You can’t really bottle that and put it in a lab.”