[meteorite-list] Fire caused by meteorites.. Is it possible?

[Chris Peterson]

The first and last examples are highly speculative, and probably not 
examples of fires started by meteorites.

Tunguska, of course, shows how fires can be started by the air burst of 
a _meteor_, which makes sense. But I don't know of any case where there 
is good evidence of a fire started by an ordinary _meteorite_ impact. 
(The question was about meteorites, not meteors).

Chris

*******************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On 8/29/2012 1:56 PM, Gary Daniels wrote:
> The fires of 1871 (including the Great Chicago Fire) were theorized to have
> been started by meteorites/fragments of Comet Biela:
>
> http://meteorite-identification.com/mwnews/08232004.htm
>
> And, of course, the Tunguska air burst set 800 sq miles of forest on fire:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
>
> A similar (though much much smaller) event is thought to have happened in
> 1564 in Jacksonville, Florida due to a meteor airburst:
>
> http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2012-08-08/story/scientists-ask-did-met
> eor-fall-jacksonville-448-years-ago
>
> So can meteors cause fires? Yep. When they explode before impacting.
>
> -Gary Daniels