Visual Comparison of "Atomic" or fission bombs to "Hydrogen" or fusion bombs
The "fireball" of a nuclear blast is what it sounds like; blast and thermal damage extend well beyond the fireball.
The black-and-white photo above shows the fireball from the "Ivy Mike" test (about 11Mt) superimposed on the NY city skyline.
(While I'm not certain that it's scaled correctly, the fireball should
be about 3 miles across; that looks about right by a seat-of-the-pants
estimate)
The yellow circle shows the fireball size of a 1 Megaton device, and
the red circle shows the fireball size of a 15 kiloton device.
The relative sizes of the red, yellow, and white fireballs are approximately correct.
For a version of the "laydown maps" described in Kaplan, see
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclear_weapon_effects/nuclearwpneffctcalc.html?formAction=297&contentId=367,
in which the red circle denotes fire damage, the blue circle is most
buildings damaged beyond use, and the yellow circle is "moderate damage"
Notes:
Fireball calculation sizes based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield, and in particular http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Comparative_nuclear_fireball_sizes.svg, which gives that fireball radius in km is approx 0.06*yield^(2/5), with yield in kilotons. Well, I think it's radius, but again, the relative sizes of the above are correct.
Last Modified September 26, 2008.
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