The rare and fierce tornado was detected at a fire in California on Saturday. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for a pyrocumulonimbus cloud formed by the Loyalton Fire, saying it was “capable of producing a tornado and outflowing winds exceeding 60 mph,” CNN said meteorologist Haley Brink.
A pyrocumulonimbus cloud forms over intense rising heat, typically from a fire like a volcano. Fire tornadoes are created when the rising heat of a fire draws in smoke, fire and dirt, and creates a rotational vortex above the light, Brink said.
Fire tornadoes can be massive and deadly. In 2018, one claimed the life of a firefighter and a bulldozer driver fighting the Carr Fire. When the National Water Service investigated the damage to that firenado, it stated that it was equivalent to an EF-3 tornado with winds exceeding 143 mph.
Officials in California, Oregon and Colorado are fighting a series of wildfires that have collectively flared more than 100,000 acres – and things could get worse with intense heat descending on much of the U.S.
The Loyalton Fire burned 20,000 acres and was 5% contained by early Sunday. It burns east of Loyalton.
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