A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires. Although the term has been used to describe certain large fires, the phenomenon's determining characteristic is a fire with its own storm-force winds from every point of the compass towards the storms center where the air is heated and then ascends. The Black Saturday bushfires and the Great Peshtigo Fire are possible examples of forest fires with some portion of combustion due to a firestorm, as is the Great Hinckley Fire. Firestorms have also occurred in cities, usually due to targeted explosives, such as in the aerial firebombings of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

 

Note:   The above text is excerpted from the Wikipedia article Firestorm, which has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License.