Worth knowing about Stalingrad*:

Nearly every image of the Battle of Stalingrad show skeletal buildings amongst rubble. This is because, before the German troops arrived, the Luftwaffe had firebombed the city. The multiple fires coalesced into a firestorm, an inferno that burns 1000 degrees Centigrade hotter than a normal fire. After evacuating, Russian troops recrossed the Volga and took up positions within the ruins before the German troops arrived. The rest is history.

Firestorms can occur naturally under special conditions. It is not clear whether the Germans knew they could ignite a firestorm, as it is the first to occur in modern warfare. As far as I know it is also the first artificially induced firestorm.

Atomic bombs are a particularly "efficient" way to turn a city into a firestorm inferno. More people were killed by fire than by balst and radiation combined in Hiroshima.

*As a non-member, I can only read the first few paragraphs of Grant essay. Please forgive me if I am repeating something he has already covered.