عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Newly Enlarged NATO Starts Drill in Finland, Norway and Sweden in Defense of its Nordic Turf 

This photograph taken on February 27, 2024 shows an empty mast amongst member nation flags in the Cour d'Honneur of the NATO headquarters, ahead of a flag-raising ceremony for Sweden's accession to NATO, in Brussels on February 27, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph taken on February 27, 2024 shows an empty mast amongst member nation flags in the Cour d'Honneur of the NATO headquarters, ahead of a flag-raising ceremony for Sweden's accession to NATO, in Brussels on February 27, 2024. (AFP)
TT
TT

Newly Enlarged NATO Starts Drill in Finland, Norway and Sweden in Defense of its Nordic Turf 

This photograph taken on February 27, 2024 shows an empty mast amongst member nation flags in the Cour d'Honneur of the NATO headquarters, ahead of a flag-raising ceremony for Sweden's accession to NATO, in Brussels on February 27, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph taken on February 27, 2024 shows an empty mast amongst member nation flags in the Cour d'Honneur of the NATO headquarters, ahead of a flag-raising ceremony for Sweden's accession to NATO, in Brussels on February 27, 2024. (AFP)

NATO will kick off an exercise on Monday to defend its newly expanded Nordic territory when more than 20,000 soldiers from 13 nations take part in drills lasting nearly two weeks in the northern regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden.

With over 4,000 Finnish soldiers taking part, the Norway-led Nordic Response 2024 represents the NATO newcomer's largest ever participation in a foreign exercise, according to Finland's military.

“For the first time, Finland will participate as a NATO member nation in exercising collective defense of the alliance’s regions,” the Finnish Defense Forces said in a statement.

Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, joined NATO in April 2023 in a historic move following decades of military non-alignment. With its bid now ratified by all NATO members, neighboring Sweden is currently finalizing formalities to enter the military alliance as its 32nd member — most likely in March.

Both Sweden and Finland had developed strong ties with NATO after the end of the Cold War, but public opinion remained firmly against full membership until Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Nonalignment was seen as the best way to avoid tensions with Russia, their powerful neighbor in the Baltic Sea region. But the Russian aggression caused a dramatic shift in public opinion in both countries, and they applied jointly for NATO membership in May 2022.

For years, the biannual NATO drill, which has been conducted in the Arctic extremes of northern Norway, was called “Cold Response.”

However, “thanks to the NATO expansion with Finland and eventually Sweden, we are now expanding the exercise to a Nordic Response,” the Norwegian Armed Forces said on its website. This year, the drill is hosted equally by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The participating nations in the exercise that runs through March 15 are Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United States.

Roughly half of the participating troops will drill on land. The rest will train at sea, with over 50 participating submarines, frigates, corvettes, aircraft carriers, and various amphibious vessels, and in the air with more than 100 fighter jets, transport aircraft, maritime surveillance aircraft and helicopters, according to the Norwegian military.

The combined joint training will focus on the defense and protection of the Nordic region, Norwegian military officials said.

“We need to be able to fight back and stop anyone who tries to challenge our borders, values and democracy,” said Brigadier Tron Strand from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Commander of the Norwegian Air Operations Center, in a statement. “With the current security situation in Europe, the exercise is extremely relevant and more important than ever before,” he added.

“The High North represents an important and strategically located area for NATO” and the Nordic Response 2024 exercise “increases Nordic preparedness and the capability to conduct large-scale joint operations in challenging weather and climate," NATO said on its website.

Finland’s new president, Alexander Stubb, will inspect the drill together with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in northern Norway on March 7. It’s the first foreign trip for Stubb since he was sworn in as Finland’s new head of state and its supreme military commander on March 1.

Most Viewed

 
 
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
TT
TT

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.”