Fire tornado, California
How wildfires can create fire tornadoes
Wildfires produce a lot of heat, which causes the air above them to rise rapidly. As this hot air moves upward, cooler air from the surrounding area rushes in to replace it. This creates a spinning motion if the surface wind conditions are just right. The result is a vortex, or a spinning column of air.
Fire tornadoes pose a threat in California. A pyrotechnics lab shows how they work
As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather. The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could explode in size.
The video shows a pair of fire whirls from the Remington Fire, which began in August 2024 and burned through parts of Wyoming ...
As the Southern California wildfires continue to rage, fire tornadoes could erupt and cause even more problems.
As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather.
A spinning fire vortex spotted on video Friday among the flames in a raging Pacific Palisades wildfire looks similar to a tornado, but scientists are still examining whether it was a rare fire ...
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