This is a number of substantial buildings burning. I am wondering if the smoke would be visible from about twenty-five miles away. My research on this is running into wildfires which is not helpful. Thanks for any help.
Buildings generally emit thicker, darker smoke than wildfires. Several large buildings? Depending on terrain and weather conditions, I'd say that could easily be visible for 25 miles.
We're 25+ miles from the powerplant in the next town. We can walk to the top of the ridge and see the steam on any given day. We'd be able to see smoke even farther away.
Yeah, easily depending on elevation and foreground obstruction. You'd be shocked at how far away the eye can perceive objects if they're tall enough.
If it's during a clear windless day, and the smoke is black (which I assume most building fires would emit), and (this is the most important thing) there's nothing to block your view to it, it could be visible from 25+ miles. Smokes do disperse the further away it is from its heat source, though. I imagined in a particularly windy day, the smoke would go a bit more sideways, causing it to look less "tall" compared to what it could have been if it is allowed to discharge straight up.
Sometimes we see smoke from a distant fire that has crept our way under an inversion layer over the river valley.
Depends. Are you in an airplane or on top of a mountain? Probably. Is it a skyscraper? Yes, probably. If it's on the ground, and you're on the ground, no way in hell, the planet is in the way. Over 25 miles, the fire would be a full 350 feet below the horizon line. Here, you can use this calculator to put your height and the distance and have it tell you if it's above or below the horizon and by how much: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature. It doesn't really matter how big the fire is if it's below the curvature, when you can see really big fires from far away, it's a reflection in the atmosphere, not the fire itself.
The question was how far the smoke would be visible, not the fire. The smoke plume from a large building can easily rise to 1,000 feet or higher. Seeing that from 25 miles away would be easy.
On 9/11, when the World Trade Center Towers were hit, the smoke was seen by the astronauts on the International Space Station. You’re going to have to consider perspective and line of sight in this. At the least I’d say a fair few miles. https://www.space.com/12877-september-11-space-station-astronaut-culbertson.html
