An incendiary balloon (or balloon bomb) is a

balloon A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or lig ...

inflated with a lighter-than-air gas such as hot air, hydrogen, or helium, that has a bomb, incendiary device, or Molotov cocktail attached. The balloon is carried by the prevailing winds to the target area, where it falls or releases its payload.

Historical use

Early proposals

In 1792,

Joseph-Michel Montgolfier The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune An ...

proposed using balloons to drop bombs on British forces and ships in Toulon.''Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918: An Illustrated History of Their Impact''
Justin D. Murphy, page 161 In 1807, Denmark attempted to construct a hand-propelled dirigible that would bomb British ships blockading Copenhagen from the air.''Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918: An Illustrated History of Their Impact''
Justin D. Murphy, page 9–10 In 1846 a British board rejected as impractical a bombing design by Samuel Alfred Warner.''Military Ballooning During the Early Civil War''
The Johns Hopkins University Press, F. Stansbury Haydon, page 18–20 Attempts by

Henry Tracey Coxwell Henry Tracey Coxwell (2 March 1819 – 5 January 1900) was an English aeronaut and writer about ballooning active over the British Isles and continental Europe in the mid-to late nineteenth century. His achievements included having established ...

to interest the British government a few years later were rejected as well. In 1847, John Wise proposed the use of balloon bombs in the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...

Austrian use at Venice in 1849

The first aggressive use of balloons in warfare took place in 1849 during the

First Italian War of Independence The First Italian War of Independence ( it, Prima guerra d'indipendenza italiana), part of the Italian Unification (''Risorgimento''), was fought by the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and Italian volunteers against the Austrian Empire and other ...

. Austrian imperial forces besieging Venice attempted to float some 200 paper hot air balloons, each carrying a bomb that was to be dropped from the balloon with a time fuse over the besieged city. The balloons were launched mainly from land; however, some were also launched from the side-wheel steamer SMS ''Vulcano'' that acted as a

balloon carrier A balloon carrier or balloon tender was a ship equipped with a balloon, usually tied to the ship by a rope or cable, and usually used for observation. During the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, these ships were built ...

. The Austrians used smaller pilot balloons to determine the correct fuse settings. At least one bomb fell in the city; however, due to the wind changing after launch, most of the balloons missed their target, and some drifted back over Austrian lines and the launching ship ''Vulcano''.Mikesh, Robert C. "Japan's World War II balloon bomb attacks on North America." (1973).
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World War II

Operation Outward

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the British

Operation Outward Operation Outward was a British campaign of the Second World War that attacked Germany and German-occupied Europe with free-flying balloons. It made use of cheap, simple balloons filled with hydrogen and carrying either a trailing steel wire to d ...

launched some 99,142 balloons at Germany, 53,543 of which were carrying incendiaries, the other 45,599 carrying trailing wires to damage high voltage lines.

Fu-Go

In 1944–1945, during World War II, Japan launched some 9,300 Fu-Go balloon bombs at North America. The diameter balloons were inflated with hydrogen and typically carried one bomb, or one bomb along with four bombs. The Fu-Go utilized the winter

jet stream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering air currents in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds (flowing west to east) ...

to cross of the Pacific Ocean in approximately three days. To control altitude, the balloon used a barometric sensor that would release ballast sand-bags when the balloon went below . When the sensor registered an altitude of above , hydrogen was vented from the balloon. The whole mechanism was activated 52 minutes after launch to allow the balloon to reach initial altitude. The final sandbag stations were fitted with incendiary bombs which were released by the same mechanism, and after the last release the balloon activated a self-destruct mechanism and released an additional bomb. The balloons were launched in the winter to take advantage of the more favorable winter jet stream. However this limited their damage potential as wildfires were less likely to catch in winter. The Fu-Go balloons inflicted relatively little damage, except for one fatal incident in which a woman and five children were killed near Bly, Oregon after they approached a balloon that had landed at the subsequently named Mitchell Recreation Area. The deaths of six civilians were the only fatalities caused by fire balloons on American soil during World War II.

Cold War

United States

Following World War II, the United States developed the E77 balloon bomb based on the Fu-Go balloon. This balloon was intended to disperse an anti-crop agent; however, it was not used operationally. The 1954–1955 WS-124A Flying Cloud program tested high-altitude balloons for delivery of

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...

, but was found unfeasible in terms of accuracy.

Current use

Gaza Strip

Since the beginning of the 2018 Gaza border protests, Palestinians have been launching incendiary kites at Israel as a form of Agro-terrorism. Since the beginning of May 2018, helium-filled incendiary balloons have been used alongside the kites. Gazan balloons are devised from helium-filled party balloons or

condom A condom is a sheath-shaped Barrier contraception, barrier device used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy or a Sexually transmitted disease, sexually transmitted infection (STI). There are both male and female con ...

s that are strung together, with flaming rags, other incendiary devices, or explosives strung below. The prevailing wind blowing in from the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

, propels the balloons inland from Gaza into Israel. According to a report in ''

Ynet Ynet (stylized as ynet) is one of the major Israeli news and general-content websites, and is the online outlet for the '' Yedioth Ahronot'' newspaper. However, most of Ynet's content is original work, published exclusively on the website and wri ...

'', as of 10 July 2018, incendiary kites and balloons started 678 fires in Israel, burning of woodland, of agricultural crops, as well as open fields. Some balloons landed in the Eshkol Regional Council and the Sdot Negev Regional Council, and no one was injured. One balloon cluster reached

Beersheba Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva ( he, בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, ''Bəʾēr Ševaʿ'', ; ar, بئر السبع, Biʾr as-Sabʿ, Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. ...

, some from the Gaza strip.In first, incendiary balloon lands in Be'er Sheva
YNET, Ilana Curiel and Matan Tzuri, 30 July 2018

References

{{reflist Balloons Bombs Improvised weapons Incendiary weapons Biological anti-agriculture weapons