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Iran Guards Threaten to Attack Opposition Positions in Iraqi Kurdistan

Head of Iran’s Revolutionary guards ground forces Mohammad Pakpour (C) attends a funeral ceremony in Tehran October 20, 2009. (Reuters)
Head of Iran’s Revolutionary guards ground forces Mohammad Pakpour (C) attends a funeral ceremony in Tehran October 20, 2009. (Reuters)
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Iran Guards Threaten to Attack Opposition Positions in Iraqi Kurdistan

Head of Iran’s Revolutionary guards ground forces Mohammad Pakpour (C) attends a funeral ceremony in Tehran October 20, 2009. (Reuters)
Head of Iran’s Revolutionary guards ground forces Mohammad Pakpour (C) attends a funeral ceremony in Tehran October 20, 2009. (Reuters)

The commander of the ground forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards threatened to bombard the positions of the Kurdish opposition in Iraqi Kurdistan, warning the residents of the northern region not to approach the bases of the anti-Tehran parties.

Iranian commander, General Mohammad Pakpour, was speaking on Monday, shortly after his arrival at the bases of the IRGC forces in the border triangle between Iran, Turkey and the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Fars news agency reported that Pakpour’s tour came amid new movements of “armed terrorist groups” in the region - a reference to Kurdish opposition factions deployed in the border areas.

He noted that previous warnings were sent to officials in the Kurdistan region about the growing activity of Kurdish armed factions in western Iran.

Pakpour described the Kurdish opposition as “terrorist and counter-revolutionary groups,” saying: “They threaten stability and calm in the border areas, and cause harm to the people.”

“We have issued the required warnings to the Iraqi government and regional officials in the north of this country,” he added.

He stressed that the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan region “should not allow terrorists to roam and set up headquarters on their lands, and cause a security threat to Iran.”

“Any negligence in this regard contradicts the principles of good neighborliness and friendly relations between the two countries,” he remarked.

Pakpour spoke of “the possibility of a decisive and shocking response” against the Kurdish parties “given the conditions of the region.” He advised the residents of that area to stay away from the headquarters of the Kurdish parties to avoid being harmed.

Secretary-General of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, had called on the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Fouad Hussein, to expel the opposition Kurdish parties from the Kurdistan region.

“We will deal strongly with any group or movement that wants to misuse Iraqi lands, in any way, to threaten Iran’s security,” Shamkhani said.

The warning came about two weeks after the region’s Ministry of Interior requested the Kurdish opposition parties from neighboring countries to “abstain from using the territory of the Kurdistan region as a base for their operations and to spare the area a regional conflict.”

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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
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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.”