Firefighters in British Colombia, Canada, have captured a rare phenomenon on video: a fire tornado. The awe-inspiring footage emerged during the ferocious Downton Lake wildfire, which engulfed the region near Lillooet on August 17.
The combination of intense fires, forceful winds, and atmospheric instability created this extraordinary phenomenon. The video was shared to Xitter earlier this week.
According to the experts at the B.C. Wildfire Service, “strong winds from the southwest” led to an exponential escalation in the scale and intensity of the fire.
Notably, the relative humidity plummeted to an unprecedented 14 per cent in the early hours of the morning, an astonishingly low value for nighttime conditions. This anomaly played a pivotal role in the creation of the fire tornado.
According to the wildfire service, a drastic reduction in the dew point, which plunged to 12.2 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately minus 11 degrees Celsius) coupled with the arrival of a cold front, further exacerbated the combustible conditions.
These towering fire tornados are extremely rare and are characterized by their vertical orientation and fierce rotation of gases and flames. The B.C. Wildfire Service underlined, “These unique conditions and extreme fire behaviour are not experienced on the majority of fires in B.C.”
While Canada is busy fighting fires, a wildfire in Hawaii took out the historic town of Lahaina in Maui just last week. DIYP spoke to a resident photographer to get his on-the-ground perspective on the disaster.
[Via Petapixel]
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