can result in Cumulonimbus flammagenitus (cloud) spawning landspouts and waterspouts or even to develop mesocyclone-like updraft rotation of the plume itself and/or of the cumulonimbi, which can spawn tornadoes similar to those in supercells. Pyrocumulonimbi generated by large fires on rare occasion also develops in a similar way. Classification There are currently three widely recognized types of fire whirls: Type 1: Stable and centered over burning area. Type 2: Stable or transient, downwind of burning area. Type 3: Steady or transient, centered over an open area adjacent to an asymmetric burning area with wind. There is evidence suggesting that the fire whirl in the Hifukusho-ato area, during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, was of type 3. Other mechanism and fire whirl dynamics may exist. A broader classification of fire whirls suggested by Forman A. Williams includes five different categories: Whirls generated by fuel distribution in wind Whirls above fuels in pools or on water Tilted fire whirls Moving fire whirls Whirls modified by vortex breakdown The meteorological community views some fire-induced phenomena as atmospheric phenomena. Using the pyro- prefix, fire-induced clouds are called pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus. Larger fire vortices are similarly being viewed. Based on vortex scale, the classification terms of pyronado, "pyrotornado", and "pyromesocyclone" have been proposed. Notable examples During the 1871 Peshtigo fire, the community of Williamsonville, Wisconsin, was burned by a fire whirl; the area where Williamsonville once stood is now Tornado Memorial County Park. An extreme example of a fire whirl is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan, which ignited a large city-sized firestorm which in turn produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 people in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo. Numerous large fire whirls (some tornadic) that developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California, on 7 April 1926, produced significant structural damage well away from the fire, killing two. Many whirlwinds were produced by the four-day-long firestorm coincident with conditions that produced severe thunderstorms, in which the larger fire whirls carried debris away. Fire whirls were produced in the conflagrations and firestorms triggered by firebombings of European and Japanese cities during World War II and by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fire whirls associated with the bombing of Hamburg, particularly those of 27–28 July 1943, were studied. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in 1978–1979, fire whirls ranging from the transient and