Word: firestorms
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Dates: during 1961-1961
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Piel does call attention to an objection to shelters in areas on the perimeter of a blast which he feels--and rightly--has been neglected: the firestorm which the detonation of a bomb at the proper height can cause. As the size of the bomb increases, he points out, the fire radius increase at many times the rate at which the blast radius increases. Thus, "the 50-megaton bomb... must have a blast radius of about 13 miles, but an incendiary radius of 50; a 100-megaton bomb would have a blast radius of about 17 miles and an incendiary...
There is no defense against this firestorm, "a conflagration so huge that it must be reckoned a metereological event." Piel has the shelter advocates on two counts: not only does a firestorm-producing blast render defence of the metropolitan area impossible (the central city being the target); but if the bomb is detonated at that height, fall-out is minimized. Piel thus presents the vision of people being suffocated and cremated in backyard shelters, protecting themselves against fall-out that will never rain...