Meteorologists determine the Creek Fire created two fire tornados

Northeast of Fresno, California earlier this month

Satellite photo showing smoke from fires in California
Satellite photo showing smoke from fires in California at 6:01 p.m. PDT Sept 5, 2020. NASA/Wildfire Today. The Creek Fire

The Creek Fire ran for more than 10 miles and burned 36,000 acres during the first 22 hours after it started at 6 p.m. September 4 northeast of Fresno, California. During that time it created two fire tornados and sent its smoke plume up to 55,000 feet, taller than the tornadic thunderstorms in tornado alley.

An analysis by meteorologists from the National Weather service has revealed that the extreme growth on September 5 generated rare phenomenons — vortices rated at EF2 and EF1, sometimes called fire tornados when they are created by a wildfire.

One was near Mammoth Pool Reservoir and the other was near Huntington Lake. Over 200 people trapped by the fire at Mammoth Pool Reservoir were flown out by courageous National Guard Pilots in helicopters, at times through darkness and smoke.

The NWS personnel rated the vortices based on the effects on trees, including areas where trees were debarked, indicating an EF2 event.

Below is an excerpt from an article by Matthew Cappucci  in the Washington Post.

Jerald Meadows, the warning coordination meteorologist at the Hanford office, said both tornadoes shared common features. “The main contributing factor was the debarking of all the pine trees up with the Mammoth Pool tornado,” Meadows said. “They both uprooted trees to the root balls and snapped large pines. But the [EF1 tornado] did not have any signs of true debarking. We’re probably talking the difference between 100 and 110 miles per hour.”

The Mammoth Pool tornado, which touched down inside the Wagner Campground, snapped several two-foot-diameter trees about 20 to 30 feet above the ground; it was rated as having winds of 115 to 125 mph. The Huntington Lake fire tornado had winds of 90 to 107 mph, and the NWS noted that it was “the result of unprecedented fire activity.”

The article reports that the NWS personnel on duty while the tornados were occurring had concerns about activating their severe weather warning system.

“A tornado warning was considered but not issued,” said [Jerald Meadows, the warning coordination meteorologist at the Hanford Office], who feared that disseminating such an alert might leave people unnecessarily conflicted about deciding whether to shelter or evacuate.

“A tornado warning for a fire opens up a can of worms,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re messaging properly, and we were talking to fire crews letting them know of the circulations we were seeing.”

Before the onslaught of fire tornadoes that has been a hallmark of 2020′s blazes, some National Weather Service offices have had internal discussions and concluded that they would not issue tornado warnings for wildfire-related twisters. While the National Weather Service hasn’t issued specific policy guidance to its 122 forecast offices on how to handle fire tornadoes, Meadows suspects considerable research will be needed to reach a resolution.


This article was edited September 26 to clarify the locations of the fire tornados at Mammoth Pool Reservoir and Huntington Lake.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom.

Typos, let us know HERE, and specify which article. Please read the commenting rules before you post a comment.

Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

4 thoughts on “Meteorologists determine the Creek Fire created two fire tornados”

  1. The Mammoth Pool area should have been warned of the upcoming severe weather catastrophe if in fact it was known to be upcoming.
    We were warned and evacuated for the Aspen Fire which occurred in Fresno County well below Mammoth Pool in 2013. We were evacuated for the French Fire in 2014 also. Both dwarfed by the Creek Fire.
    We do have a “Mammoth Pool” sheriff funded by USFS and Madera County funds. Instead, of that help, I have email from travelers stating they saw USFS patrol cars exiting the forest as they were coming in the morning of Sept 5 and not given warning.
    I am very angry about this whole situation. In the past, I have requested USFS to clean up their area around our facilities to no avail…downed and rotting trees laying everywhere in public areas in the forest.
    Also, Mammoth Pool Reservoir was THE destination place for safety for our campers, when I realized that we had no backup for fire protection from the USFS and were told we were on our own…our only hope was to go to where it was safe from the fire…the lakeshore. Thank goodness we had some level headed campers who drove their vehicles back and forth from the lake to the store to assist people down to the lake. These guys were the real heroes of the day, perhaps saving many lives. By 3:30pm the road to the lake was impassable. At 8pm the National Guard showed up. The fire was out of the area by Sept 6 and we were able to drive out with road clearing help from the USFS personnel. My request is that you weather guys pass on your knowledge of any potential dangerous situations so that the locals can make right decisions, the earlier the better.

    Your assumption that any information about the fire tornado would result in the wrong action by campers means that you knew what the options were, in our case it was always to get to a safe area out of the campground either through Beasore Road or down to Mammoth Pool. Your well-intentioned inaction caused us to be delayed to each of these options.

    0
    0
  2. The Mammoth Pool area should have been warned of the upcoming severe catastrophe if in fact it was known to be upcoming.
    We were warned and evacuated for the Aspen Fire which occurred in Fresno County well below Mammoth Pool in 2013. We were evacuated for the French Fire in 2014 also. Both dwarfed by the Creek Fire.
    We do have a “Mammoth Pool” sheriff funded by USFS and Madera County funds. Instead, of that help, I have email from travelers stating they saw USFS patrol cars exiting the forest as they were coming in the morning of Sept 5 and not given warning.
    I am very angry about this whole situation. In the past, I have requested USFS to clean up their area around our facilities to no avail…downed and rotting trees laying everywhere in public areas in the forest.
    Also, Mammoth Pool Reservoir was THE destination place for safety for our campers, when I realized that we had no backup for fire protection from the USFS and were told we were on our own…our only hope was to go to where it was safe from the fire…the lakeshore. Thank goodness we had some level headed campers who drove their vehicles back and forth from the lake to the store to assist people down to the lake. These guys were the real heroes of the day, perhaps saving many lives. By 3:30pm the road to the lake was impassable. At 8pm the National Guard showed up. The fire was out of the area by Sept 6 and we were able to drive out with road clearing help from the USFS personnel. My request is that you weather guys pass on your knowledge of any potential dangerous situations so that the locals can make right decisions, the earlier the better.

    Your assumption that any information about the fire tornado would result in the wrong action by campers means that you knew what the options were, in our case it was always to get to a safe area out of the campground either through Beasore Road or down to Mammoth Pool. Your well-intentioned inaction caused us to be delayed to each of these options.

    0
    0
  3. Would have been nice to get some response from the USFS when I called about evacuating Wagner’s Campground. At least about the magnitude and speed of the fire. Instead, USFS said they had no authority to tell us to evacuate. Well they sure did when other fires started in past years and they didn’t hesitate to let us and our campers know when to evacuate.
    In 2014, when the French Fire started at Rock Creek, it took several weeks to get to Wagner’s Campground, about 1 month from Mile High to Wagners Campground. There was plenty of time to evacuate and leave the area through safe routes.
    This time, from Mile High to Wagner’s Campground, it took hours to get to our area…we were never given warning about the speed of this fire. Had we done what the USFS and other fire officials said…eg “to shelter in place” at the campground we all would be dead right now.

    0
    0
    1. The biggest difference is that this fire was on the opposite side of the river and they couldn’t have anticipated that it was going to spot across the river by 5 miles. The french fire took about a day to hit mile high and 3 to get to your guys place. Evacuations are up to the sheriff, This fire created all kinds of problems because it was moving so fast. Acre estimates from experienced incident mapping folks based on satellite info put this thing at near 100,000 acres at 10am on the 6th of September.

      0
      0

Comments are closed.