User:Penitentes/Fire tornado (draft)
Vortices born from intense fire-generated weather processes / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fire tornadoes, also called pyrotornadoes, are tornado-strength vortices generated by fires. Fire tornadoes are often confused with fire whirls, a smaller-scale phenomenon, being much rarer and much less well-understood. Few confirmed examples exist, all of them occurring in the 21st century. The mechanism that leads to their formation are not entirely understood, but are generally suggested by research to have roots in both fire and cloud processes, making them distinct from both fire whirls (common in wildfires) and traditional tornadoes, which typically form from the mesocyclone of a supercell thunderstorm.
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Fire tornado | |
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Area of occurrence | So far observed in North America and Australia |
Effect | Wind damage, burning, propagation/intensification of fires |
Pyro-tornadogenesis was first scientifically identified following a destructive vortex that formed during a bushfire on the outskirts of Canberra, Australia, in 2003. The vortex was filmed by multiple bystanders at a distance but was not generally accepted as a genuine fire-generated tornado until 2012. Since then, several others have been recognized. One of the most famous examples of a fire tornado to date is the vortex that formed within a portion of the Carr Fire in 2018, in the suburbs of the city of Redding, California. That vortex was found to have generated wind speeds upwards of 143 miles per hour (230 km/h), equivalent in strength to a traditional EF3 tornado.