A NUCLAR BOMB WILL PRODUCE A MASSIVE FIREBALL INCINERATING INHABITANTS OF A CITY. War, Nuclear War, and Nuclear Deterrence Some Conceptual and Moral Issues. Richard Wasserstrom. Ethics, Vol. 95, No. 3, Special Issue Symposium on Ethics and Nuclear Deterrence (Apr, 1985), pp. 424-444. Published by The University of Chicago Press. Stable URL http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381030 The fireball, which follows directly on the explosion, would produce at least third- degree burns on the body of any person out in the open and within a radius of nine miles from the center of the blast. Those closer to it would be incinerated if they were not otherwise killed by the force of the explosion, the ensuing winds, and the falling structures. Within a radius of eight miles, mass fires would soon occur, caused by the inflammable materials ignited by the heat of the fireball, and those within these firestorms would also be burned to death. And within the first twenty-four to forty- eight hours, the radioactive fallout from the detonation would deliver doses of radiation, well in excess of those that are lethal, to persons who were within an area of about two thousand square miles and exposed to it.
