Fire Tornado

A tornado is one of the most devastating forces of nature. But if you take a highly miniaturized version of it, it's a very beautiful phenomenon. A very rare form of tornado is a fire tornado, in which the flames move very high up with the wind. In the wild it's something you definitely don't want to be near, but in the controlled laboratory environment it's something very worth seeing.

	This experiment includes burning liquids and is therefore very dangerous! Young scientists must not try any part of this experiment without their parents!
	As with all experiments with fire, you must be extremely careful. It is best to do the experiment outside, where there is nothing flammable nearby and always have a fire extinguisher ready.

Materials you need for this experiment:

fire extinguisher	Hopefully you'll never need it, but once you start experimenting with fire, you'll always need to have a fire extinguisher handy.
ethanol burner	The ethanol burner is your fire source.
glas tube	The glass tube should fit as closely as possible around the ethanol burner. It can't be too small because it would be very dangerous if it fell over. However, if the diameter is too large, there will be no chimney effect and no fire tornado will occur. However, ethanol burners with a matching glass tube are already available to buy as a set. If you don't have a glass tube, we recommend buying a ready-made set.
fire color powder (optional)	This component is optional and does not contribute anything to the tornado effect, but only serves to make the fire colorful.

How to make the experiment:

	Place your ethanol burner somewhere where there is nothing flammable nearby and keep the fire extinguisher nearby. Now fill the ethanol burner with ethanol and light it. The flame looks normal and has no tornado effect.
	If you have a finished set of burners with a glass tube, put the glass tube on now. If you make it yourself from individual parts, place four plates around the burner and carefully place the glass tube on the edges of the plates. The reason for the plates is that air has to be drawn in from below to create the chimney effect that then creates the tornado.
	If you want to make the fire tornado a little more spectacular, you can add fire color powder before lighting the ethanol burner. These powders contain metals, which are responsible for the color of the flame.
	With these fire color powders you can then get a beautiful colored tornado.
	If you dim the lights a little, the fire tornado will stand out even more.

Have fun experimenting!