Watching some recent news about forest fires, I got to thinking about the destructive potential of natural phenomena and how they might relate to logia users. Since, IIRC, logia have tremendous control over their element and the virtually unlimited ability to generate more of it, it seems quite feasible for a logia user to achieve comparable results, especially if not limited by PIS or CIS.
Let's take the destructive potential of fire. A naturally occurring forest fire can:
(1) in the right wind conditions, can reach land speeds of to 40 mph;
(2) engulf thousands, if not tens of thousands, of acres in a matter of hours;
(3) kill living animals and make trees explode from moisture and sap boiling) from its radiant energy and infrared radiation alone;
(4) generate fire whirls (tornadoes of fire) which can be several hundred feet tall and wind speeds of up to 100 mph
(5) form massive firestorms which suck up huge amounts of available oxygen, produce furnace-like temperatures of over 1500 C, and generate small tornadoes (industrial cities like Dresden were pretty much razed to the ground by firestorms generated by incendiary bombing during WWII)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_fire)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II)
Now I freely admit that Ace has not explicitly displayed the ability to do something of this magnitude in the manga or anime. However, I recall a scene in the anime when Ace turns pretty much instantaneously into an aerial mass of fire that looked like it covered a city block or two, not to mention that the manga seems to imply that his mere presence somehow caused snow to stop falling in Drum.
So it certainly seems plausible that Ace could duplicate a relatively common phenomena like a large, intense, fast-moving forest fire. A natural forest fire is capable of being incredibly destructive, without the slightest incentive from a guiding intelligence. Imagine what could happen if it 'wants' to move faster, burn hotter, grow bigger, etc.?
So with Ace, you've got at least the potential of a huge sentient fire covering tens, if not hundreds of acres, and which is capable of boiling the blood of any remotely normal living thing foolish enough to get several meters of it. Oh, and it moves wherever the hell it wants to. Now picture this sentient fire merrily rolling across the landscape, reducing entire towns and forests to ash, boiling anything smaller than a large lake dry, etc.
Ouch.
Now apply this sort of reasoning to the other logia. We already have an idea of what Enel and Aokiji can do – imagine what sort of destruction either might be capable of if they really wanted to. And although we don't see much of Smoker's abilities (except for flight, intangibility, smoky tentacles, etc.) he could conceivably have the capability to suffocate entire towns.
And lastly, but certainly not least, there's a strong possibility that Dragon is another logia (probably wind). Sentient F-5 tornadoes with diameters of over a mile, windspeeds of 300+ mph, and capable of tossing trains round and peeling pavement off the ground, anyone?
Double-ouch. :blink:
Just some interesting possibilities to consider....