News and opinion about wildland fire
You may have seen the footage in the video below, of firefighters being overrun in 1989 by a very large fire whirl or fire tornado (or firenado) in California. It is very impressive, and can be another reason why firefighters need to be on their toes and very situationally aware.
Thanks and a hat tip go out to Kent
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized3 Comments on A collection of reports of fire whirls and fire tornadoes 
Fire tornadoes, firenadoes, or fire whirls have gotten a lot of notice in the press in the last week or so, primarily because several were filmed on the fires in San Diego County. The terms are being used rather loosely, but Rick McRae, a researcher in Australia, says a fire tornado is attached to the underside of a thunderstorm while a fire whirl remains attached to the ground.
Regardless, they are fascinating to watch.
Here are some links to reports we have had on Wildfire Today about the phenomenon:
And one of the best videos of a large fire whirl was shot by Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television while he was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station in Australia. We have more details about it at the link above, but it is embedded below for your viewing pleasure.
Outback firenado-Australia from chris tangey on Vimeo.
I don’t think this meets the definition of a “firenado“, if there is a definition, but it is an impressive photo, regardless. Often, fire whirls are partially obscured by smoke and are difficult to photograph clearly.
‘Firenado’ whips up wicked whirl in Missouri field http://t.co/Znhitr9Lg9 pic.twitter.com/H5c8KA0iok
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 8, 2014
The photo was posted on Instagram by Janae Copelin who happened to be driving by when a farmer was burning his field. She wrote:
A farmer burning off his field and as we stopped so I could take a picture the wind whipped up this fire twister #nofilter #firestorm #firetwister”.
She said it was the “coolest/scariest thing I’ve ever seen”.
This very impressive fire whirl was captured on video March 14 at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado during a prescribed fire. The swirling wind swept up tumbleweeds, some of them burning, and created a problem for firefighters. It was posted on YouTube by Bellevue Wildfire.
Thanks and a hat tip go out to Jim, Steve, Tristan, and Andrew.
In November, 2012 we wrote about some of the research that was conducted to study and document what can only be described as a fire tornado in Australia, a tornado-like event that can be generated by a wildfire. In recent years a new term has been coined — firenado — which seems appropriate.
It occurred near Chapman in the Australian Capitol Territories during the McIntyres Hut Fire January 18, 2003. After studying the event, Rick McRae of the ACT and others discovered that it traveled across 25 kilometers at 30 kph (19 mph), had horizontal winds of 250 kph (149 mph), and vertical winds of 150 kph (93 mph). Damage that occurred to trees and structures is much like what you would see after a tornado in Oklahoma.
Australia’s ABC TV produced an excellent video that goes surprisingly deeply into some of the scientific principles of this phenomenon, including fire behavior when a strong wind pushes a fire up a slope. This can result in spot fires at the bottom of the slope on the other side, the lee slope, which can be pushed rapidly up the lee slope by a wind eddy in the opposite direction of the prevailing wind (see the screen grab above from the video). They also documented how a fire at the top of the ridge can travel across the ridge at 90 degrees to the direction of the prevailing wind.
Knowledge about this kind of fire behavior is something that wildland firefighters should retain in their “slide file”, in the unfortunate event that they find themselves in danger of being entrapped and are considering using the lee side of a ridge as an escape route or a sheltering location.
Check out our November, 2012 article for more information about this 2003 event. The video below illustrates some of the findings developed by the fire researchers.
The information in the video can be even more interesting when considered along with the winds at the site of the Yarnell Hill Fire entrapment, as modeled by WindWizard. The image below is from page 79 of the Yarnell Hill Fire SAIT report. Click the image to see a slightly larger version.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently completed a 670-acre prescribed fire at the Oxford Slough Waterfowl Production Area (WPA) in Idaho.
The photo above shows a fire whirl on the prescribed fire. These have also been called “fire tornadoes”, but recently someone coined the term “firenado”, which we have taken a liking to. In August we posted a video of a massive firenado on a fire in Alaska.
These photos, which were all taken by Lance Roberts, and others can be found on the USFWS Facebook page, where they described the Oxford Slough WPA:
Oxford Slough WPA is one of nearly 7,000 WPAs nationwide, and the only WPA in Region 1. The 1,878-acre WPA is located 10 miles north of Preston, Idaho, abutting the small town of Oxford, where it provides valuable foraging habitat for species such as cranes, geese, Franklin’s gulls, and white-faced ibis, and nesting habitat not only for waterfowl, but white-faced ibis, Franklin’s gulls, and other waterbirds.
