Rare ‘fire tornado’ springs from blazes spreading rapidly across Northern California
AFP via Getty Images A rare „firenado” sprung from a California forest fire this weekend and lead the National Weather Service (NWS) to warn residents of „extremely dangerous fire behaviour”.Since Friday, the Loyalton fire has burned more than 20,000 acres north of Lake Tahoe. As of Sunday morning, zero per cent of the forest fire has been contained, according to Tahoe National Forest.Besides the fire rapidly spreading across Northern California, a rare fire tornado developed briefly on Saturday.A pyrocumulonimbus cloud is created above areas of intense rising heat, like a fire or volcano. A fire tornado, also known as a „firenado”, then brings in the smoke, dirt, and fire particles from the nearby fire into its cloud.Firenados can be dangerous depending on how large they become. In 2018, during the Carr fire in northwestern California, a fire tornado claimed at least two lives.”Firenadoes are an extreme weather phenomenon that can occur with rotating fire columns,” the NWS Reno tweeted. „As extreme as this behaviour is, the #CarrFire had an extreme example of this.”It may have been the first time the NWS has issued a tornado warning for a fire tornado, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
