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Explosion Destroys Apartment Block in Dutch City, Killing at Least 3

Emergency services stand at the site of a partially collapsed residential building following a fire and an explosion in The Hague on December 7, 2024. (Photo by Ramon van Flymen / ANP / AFP)
Emergency services stand at the site of a partially collapsed residential building following a fire and an explosion in The Hague on December 7, 2024. (Photo by Ramon van Flymen / ANP / AFP)
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Explosion Destroys Apartment Block in Dutch City, Killing at Least 3

Emergency services stand at the site of a partially collapsed residential building following a fire and an explosion in The Hague on December 7, 2024. (Photo by Ramon van Flymen / ANP / AFP)
Emergency services stand at the site of a partially collapsed residential building following a fire and an explosion in The Hague on December 7, 2024. (Photo by Ramon van Flymen / ANP / AFP)

An explosion and fire rocked a neighborhood in the Dutch city of The Hague on Saturday, killing three people and injuring other people and destroying several apartments, according to authorities.

The cause of the disaster was unclear. Mayor Jan van Zanen said investigators were looking into “all possibilities.” Police said they are looking for a car seen leaving the scene in case that helps with the investigation.

Van Zanen said three bodies were pulled from the rubble. Emergency authorities said four people were rescued and taken to the hospital. The mayor said rescuers were no longer looking for survivors but for eventual bodies, given that the ‘’slim chance of survival'' under what's left of the apartments. He could not specify how many people might still be unaccounted for.

Residents of the northeastern neighborhood of Mariahoeve in The Hague heard a huge bang and screams before dawn. One woman told local media that she thought an earthquake had happened.

Dutch authorities deployed a specialized urban search and rescue team to the scene, with four dogs trained to find victims.

Soon after the explosion, a line of ambulances could be seen waiting nearby in anticipation of more victims. The spokesperson for the local hospital said that they were on standby to deal with injuries.

The mayor called it “an extremely heavy day."

“I had expected a different Saturday,'' van Zanen told a news conference.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof said in a statement he was shocked by the images of the disaster. “My thoughts go out to the victims, all other people involved and the emergency services who are now working on the scene,” he said.
The Dutch royal family expressed similar sentiments. “Our thoughts are with those affected in The Hague after the explosion and fire this morning,'' including those "who are afraid of the fate of their loved ones,” King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima said in a statement.

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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.”