Firecane refers to a hypothetical confluence of meteorological and man-made disasters, whereby a hurricane crossing an oil-laden expanse of water generates lightning which ignites the flammable fossil fuel, creating a vortex of fire. A fearful imagining born of recent cataclysms in the Gulf of Mexico, the term has gained currency in New Orleans, the city inundated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and which in 2010 was near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Lightning strikes from thunderstorms may cause isolated fires, as happened on a drill ship near the spill.
Another proposed sc...