Firefighters in California are facing an increased risk of fire tornadoes due to high winds and dry conditions. Experts warn that these rare but dangerous phenomena can strengthen wildfires and cause widespread destruction.
LOS ANGELES — 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 Wildfire Coordinating Group’s glossary of wildland fire terms doesn’t include an entry for fire tornado, but it defines a fire whirl as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris and flame,” and says large whirls “have the intensity of a small tornado.”
“There is a rotation caused by very strong wind shear and a very hot, localized low-pressure system,” she said.Fire tornados can make fires stronger by sucking up air, Carvalho said. “It creates a tornado track, and wherever this goes, the destruction is like any other tornado.” Research also suggests fire tornadoes can carry airborne embers, also called firebrands, over long distances, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They also can change the fire’s behavior, he said.
WILDFIRES CALIFORNIA FIRE TORNADOES WEATHER DANGERS
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