Firenado (Pyrocumulus vortex ): 

US National Weather Service issues America’s first-ever warning for a fire tornado
Published  August 15, 2020 By Bob Brigham

Fire tornado screengrab via Twitter.

The year 2020 continued to make history as a terrible time as America received its first-ever warning of firenadoes.

“The Reno office of the National Weather Service warned Northern California of a fiery tornado Saturday afternoon that had sprung up near a large, fast-moving wildfire in the Sierra. That’s right: A firenado,” the Sacramento Bee reported Saturday. “It is the first known issuance of a tornado warning for the climate phenomenon since it burst into California’s consciousness during the deadly Carr Fire in 2018.”

Indeed, Washington Post meteorologist Matthew Cappucci confirmed it was a first.

“For the first time in history, a tornado warning has been issued for a likely fire tornado,” Cappucci reported. “These are not ‘firewhirls.’ This is a rotating smoke plume being ingested into a pyrocumulonimbus cloud that could produce a bonafide fire-induced tornado. Tornadic wind speeds.”

Here are some of the images and videos people were posting online:

image of the fire tornado in Lassen Co., CA today. divine. gorgeous. unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/jr9zj89tTh
— Morgan Fuld (@mjfuld54) August 16, 2020

What the fuck? A fire tornado in CA? What the hell even is this year? Seriously like whoever is play jumanji PLEASE FINISH YOUR GAME ALREADY!! 2020 needs to end pic.twitter.com/BMKcD9g6Ft
— Alexis James (Lexi) (@LexiJ25) August 16, 2020



Fire Tornado today outside Chilcoot and Hallelujah Junction California. This was intense and scary!!!! @TheTXWXchaser @spahn711 @JimCantore @ReedTimmerAccu @jeffpiotrowski #CAwx #LoyaltonFire #firenado #FireSeason2020 pic.twitter.com/vfwrTKK02n
— Tasha Joy (@That1GirlTasha) August 16, 2020

#loyaltonfire exploding in size. Pyrocumulus vortex TimeLapse @weather_west pic.twitter.com/jM8kc9y9Od
— Barry Winston (@BSWinston) August 15, 2020

Who had #FireTornado on their list of things left that could happen in 2020?!? Well, CA officially had the first Fire Tornado in history today! Like the things that are happening is crazy crazy! #2020 #HeatWave pic.twitter.com/aYCSSe1IZb
— Brad Everett Young (@BradEYoung) August 16, 2020

The "Fire Tornado" #LoyaltonFire is less than 20 miles away.
Here's some photos my friend took on the road sometime this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/jR076cmVwR
— Gingeroo #CA01 #WearAMask (@Destiny22Ginger) August 16, 2020


To be sure, this is not the first fire tornado in history, but it's the first warning for one.
The worst one I'm aware of was 2018 in the Carr Fire in Redding, CA: https://t.co/cwJdXzs3eZ
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 15, 2020

Rare ‘fire tornado’ caught on camera as Canada wildfires rage



Tamara Davison
Wed, 23 August 2023 at 4:24 am GMT-6·2-min read

Footage has emerged of a rare “fire tornado” sweeping through British Columbia as wildfires raged in the Canadian province, prompting thousands to flee after authorities declared a state of emergency.

As fire crews battled blazes around Gun Lake in North Pemberton, firefighters were able to capture the rare fire tornado on camera. The footage shared on the BC Wildfire Service’s social media showed a giant plume of smoke swirling past blazing trees alongside the lake. The huge inferno, filmed as ground personnel raced against time throughout the night, continued to whip up smoke throughout the 30-second clip.

The recent fire tornado is believed to have formed after a cold front came through the state after several days of extreme heat. BC wildfire crews suggested that a unique mix of conditions had helped the hellish-looking burning tornado form.

Strong winds had fanned the flames and increased the intensity of the wildfire, which crews said became more intense throughout the night. However, a cold front then swept through the area and contributed to an “air mass instability”. This led to the creation of the fire tornado, a phenomenon that is a rarity in BC wildfires.

Alongside the video, the fire service shared an explanation of what caused the fire tornado, suggesting that unique conditions as well as the terrain had contributed.

Fires in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Emergency evacuation flights from the area began on August 17 (European Space Agency/AFP via Gerre)

“Fire whirls are an incredibly rare phenomenon. These unique conditions and extreme fire behaviour are not experienced on the majority of fires in BC,” said one post.

The fire tornado was filmed just days before thousands of Canadian residents were forced to flee from their homes in the face of encroaching wildfires. The military was brought in to help residents evacuate as the fast-spreading fires continued.

Over the weekend, land roughly the size of New York state had already burnt throughout British Columbia. Chronic drought-like conditions have exacerbated the issue, meaning that firefighters could be battling fires well into autumn.

The wildfire in Kelowna, British Columbia on August 17 (George Solowan via Reuters)

BC’s premier, Daniel Eby, recently said: “This is a historic wildfire season for British Columbia.”

New reports have indicated that the wildfires could be slowly easing as the cold front helped firefighters tackle the blaze. However, thousands remain displaced from their homes.

Watch this video on The Scene.

You Can Mark 'Fire Tornado' Off Your 2020 Apocalypse Bingo Card

Alyse Stanley
Saturday 9:22PM 15/8/2020
•
Filed to:FIRENADO

The Loyalton Fire currently raging in California, as seen in this one-hour timelapse, produced a fiery vortex on Saturday, leading the National Weather Service to issue its first-ever tornado warning for a twister spawned by fire.Gif: CAL Fire

Apparently running out of cataclysmic events to throw at us this year, Mother Nature decided to reach deep into her bag of tricks and pull out a Biblical classic: swirling hellfire.

The National Weather Service issued its first-ever tornado warning for a twister spawned by fire early Saturday afternoon after a wildfire in Northern California produced a towering, flaming vortex. While not unheard of, fire tornadoes are some of the rarest weather phenomena on Earth, and meteorologists are saying this is the first time one’s received an official tornado warning.

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The NWS Reno office issued a warning for residents in Lassen County, California shortly after 6 p.m. ET on Saturday after a pyrocumulonimbus cloud “capable of producing a fire induced tornado” emerged from a wildfire in nearby Loyalton. Officials also cautioned people to stay clear of the eastern Sierra Valley and issued evacuation orders to several of the surrounding communities.



Onlookers shared footage of the blazing vortex online, and it is nothing short of terrifying. The images looks like something more at home in a blockbuster disaster flick than a newsreel. In the image of the reported scene on the ground shared below, the towering cloud kicked up by the Loyalton Fire dyes the sunlight orange while obscuring the mountains. The outlines of the firenado rising over the landscape are clear, though, amid the chaos. Other images shared on Twitter appear to confirm the tornado on the ground, swirling and sucking smoke up into the sky.

The Loyalton Fire, which remains largely uncontained as of Saturday evening, has been burning since Friday and has reportedly grown to more than 2,000 acres. Freakishly hot weather responsible for rolling blackouts across California along with gusty winds and dry conditions have allowed the flames to spread rapidly. These types of conditions are becoming more common due to the climate crisis, leading to larger and more destructive wildfires across the West. Despite that, firenados remain thankfully rare (for now).

Only a few fiery vortices have ever been recorded, including 2018's Carr Fire. What went on to become one of California’s most destructive and largest fires on record also spawned a firenado with winds of 143 mph (230 kph) and killed at least one firefighter. Their rarity has made them somewhat of a mystery.

Exactly how a fire tornado becomes, well, a firenado is still an area of very active research. What scientists do know, though, is that a key part of the formula to spin up a firenado is that a wildfire has to be monstrous enough to essentially form its own weather system. When that happens, pyrocumulous clouds and pyrocumulonimbus thunderclouds form as the hot air rises above the flames and goes through the cycle of cooling and condensing in the upper atmosphere.

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What happens next, though, is what researchers are still trying to work out. One theory is that if those updrafts of superheated air rise and rotate, you get a spinning whirl of fire and smoke stretching into the sky. Another possibility is that an area of horizontal rotating wind due to the turbulence near the ground gets swept up and tilted vertically. Good on the scientists for working to figure this out, but either way, it’s safe to say you don’t want to be anywhere near a firenado when it forms.

The National Weather Service’s Reno office later announced on Twitter that the fire tornado had weakened by around 7 p.m. ET, though it warned that “extreme fire behavior” will continue into the evening as gusts are expected to remain in excess of 60 mph (97 kph).

Alyse Stanley
Gizmodo weekend editor. Freelance games reporter. Full-time disaster bi.

Carstairs, Alta., community comes together following massive tornado

Fire chief gives update on Alberta tornado

Tornado touches down in Alberta


Stephen Hunt
CTVNewsCalgary.ca Digital Producer
Follow | Contact
Updated July 2, 2023 3:35 p.m. MDT

The central Alberta community of Carstairs spent Sunday regrouping after a huge tornado struck part of the town Saturday.

“I’ve been in emergency services for 27 years, and I’ve never had this size of tornado incident,” said Carstairs fire chief Jordan Schaeffer, in an interview with CTV News.

“It’s been tough, but my crews have been doing a great job.”

The tornado struck Saturday afternoon around 2 p.m., damaging 14 homes in the Carstairs and Didsbury area, according to Mounties.

RELATED STORIESTornado strikes Mountain View County, Alta., damaging houses

Schaeffer said some of those homes were destroyed.

“We have confirmed five homes are 100 per cent completely damaged or will be a complete write-off,” he said. “We do know of four of them that are non-existent at this time.”

Schaeffer said two fire crews were on hand, assisting with cleanup.


He added the number one priority for the community was looking after families displaced by the natural disaster.

“We’re working with RCMP or they’re getting Victims Services lined up,” he said. “Some of them (displaced families) have friends to stay with.

“We’re making sure their mental health is being taken care of.”

While there were no injuries to people reported Saturday, 25 cows and 20 chickens were killed. One horse needed to be euthanized.


Schaeffer also recalled a rescue effort of a Carstairs woman who was trapped in the basement of a destroyed home.

“We arrived on scene (Saturday),” he said. “One of my crews was telling me there was someone trapped (in the basement).

“We went over there – myself and the two firefighters – (and) the family members, and we started digging her out.

“We could hear her talking,” he said. “I backed away so I could start running the scene. And (with) the assistance of family members, local citizens and my two crew members, they were able to extricate her out and she had not a scratch on her.

“She was assessed by AHS, but was released back to her family moments after that.”


Despite the traumatic events of a Canada Day unlike any other, Schaeffer said the mood in the community Sunday was positive.

“The mood is actually really good,” he said.


“It’s a lot like the floods of 2013 in Calgary,” he added. “Yes, it was a disaster but everybody is kind of sticking together.

“There’s so much of people going, ‘Hey, can I help?’

“The biggest problem right now,” he added, “is (finding) parking for vehicles. So it’s great to see the community coming together, and trying to help these people who received this disaster.”

Schaefer also expressed gratitude for first responders from Alberta Health Services, along with members of the Olds and Didsbury fire departments, “And the RCMP,” he added, “for doing a great job and the residents of the area for letting us respond and respecting response areas.”

RELATED IMAGES

Canada Day tornado near Didsbury, Alta., July 1, 2023. (Photo courtesy Matt Melnyk)


Tornado south of Didsbury, Alberta on Canada Day, July 1, 2023 (Photo courtesy Garrett Toothe)

Canada Day tornado photographed near Didsbury, Alta., Canada, by Matt Melnyk, July 1, 2023

Canada Day tornado near Didsbury, Alta., July 1, 2023. (Photo courtesy Matt Melnyk)

Injuries reported, houses damaged following large tornado in central Alberta: RCMP

CBC
Sat, July 1, 2023 

A tornado has damaged homes in the Mountain View County area, RCMP said Saturday.

 (Cheryl Beck Studios in Carstairs - image credit)

Alberta RCMP say houses have been damaged and injuries have been reported following a tornado affecting communities in Mountain View County, but the full scope of the impact is not immediately known.

The tornado prompted an Alberta Emergency Alert to be issued on Saturday afternoon affecting Didsbury, Olds, and Carstairs. By 2:45 p.m. that alert had been cancelled.

RCMP spokesperson Gina Slaney said they are currently unsure how many homes had been damaged and how many people were injured, but at least two houses have been severely damaged.

A funnel cloud forming just north of Carstairs.

A funnel cloud forming just north of Carstairs. (Submitted by Jake Beck)

Environment and Climate Change Canada said in an earlier alert that meteorologists were tracking a severe thunderstorm that is producing a tornado.

"This is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening situation," the alert read.

2 kilometer-wide tornado damages homes near Didsbury

Written by Anna Ferensowicz Saturday, Jul 01 2023, 4:29 PM

Severe weather North of Airdrie has produced a tornado which caused property damage and injuries. (Photo provided by Andre Short)

Late on Saturday evening Didsbury RCMP confirmed that there were injuries and property damage.

According to police, 14 houses were affected by the tornado. Five houses were completely destroyed.

"Carstairs and Didsbury Fire were deployed to the scene as well as RCMP. One woman was trapped in her basement as her home was destroyed above her, but thankfully Carstairs Fire Department pulled her from the rubble and she only suffered minor injuries. No other people have been injured," police stated. "25 cows and 20 chickens are deceased and one horse needed to be put down."

According to previous reports from police, Mounties had received multiple reports of a large tornado in Mountain View County, near Highway 2, ranging from one to two kilometres wide. 

Social media was flooded with residents from Crossfield, Carstairs, and Didsbury posting photos and videos of the tornado. 

While Environment and Climate Change Canada had issued a tornado warning just before 2 p.m. on Saturday, encompassing the areas of Mountain View County near Olds and Didsbury, as well as near Carstairs and Stirlingville, at 2:45 p.m., the warning was downgraded to a tornado advisory. The advisory is still in effect for Mountain View County, Didsbury, Olds, and Carstairs.

According to Fortis Alberta, there are power outages in Mountain View County.

And according to Mountain View County's social media, there are road closures in effect. At approximately 3:42 p.m. the town stated that Highway 2A was closed between the Town of Carstairs and Westcott Road to allow for Emergency Service response and cleanup efforts. A little after 4 p.m. the County stated that a road closure was still in effect.

The Town of Carstairs is also advising residents that there are water restrictions in place.

 

 

Airdrie currently does not have a tornado warning or advisory in place. 

This is a developing story and more information will be published when available.

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Oregon Wildfire Forms 'Fire Clouds' That Pose Danger Below

Smoke and heat from a massive wildfire in southeastern Oregon are creating giant fire clouds over the blaze dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in the sky and are visible from more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAST UPDATED:JULY 17, 2021,

PORTLAND, Ore.: Smoke and heat from a massive wildfire in southeastern Oregon are creating giant fire clouds over the blaze dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in the sky and are visible from more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

Authorities have put these clouds at the top of the list of the extreme fire behavior they are seeing on the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire burning in the U.S. The inferno grew Friday to about 75 square miles (194 square kilometers) larger than the size of New York City and was raging through a part of the U.S. West that is enduring a historic drought.

The fire was so dangerous late Thursday and into Friday that authorities pulled out crews. Meteorologists this week also spotted a bigger, more extreme form of fire clouds ones that can create their own weather, including fire tornadoes."

Extreme fire behavior, including the formation of more fire clouds, was expected to persist Friday and worsen into the weekend.

WHAT ARE FIRE CLOUDS?

Pyrocumulus clouds literally translated as fire clouds" look like giant, dirty-colored thunderheads that sit atop a massive column of smoke coming up from a wildfire. Often the top of the smoke column flattens out to take the shape of an anvil.

In Oregon, fire authorities say the clouds are forming between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. each day as the sun penetrates the smoke layer and heats the ground below, creating an updraft of hot air. On this fire, crews are seeing the biggest and most dangerous clouds over a section of wilderness that’s made up mostly of dead trees, which burn instantly and with a lot of heat.

For four days in a row, the Bootleg Fire has generated multiple fire clouds that rise nearly 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the atmosphere and are easily visible from 100 to 120 air miles away (160 to 193 kilometers), authorities said Friday.

The conditions that create the clouds were expected to worsen over the weekend.

WHAT’S THE SCIENCE BEHIND THESE CLOUDS?

When air over the fire becomes super-heated, it rises in a large column. As the air with more moisture rises, it rushes up the smoke column into the atmosphere, and the moisture condenses into droplets. That’s what creates the fire clouds that look much like the thunderheads seen before a big thunderstorm.

These clouds, however, hold more than just water. Ash and particles from the fire also get swept into them, giving them a dark gray, ominous look.

IS THERE SOMETHING EVEN MORE DANGEROUS THAN A FIRE CLOUD?

Yes. When a pyrocumulus cloud forms over a fire, meteorologists begin to watch carefully for its big brother, the pyrocumulonimbus cloud.

NASA has called the latter the fire-breathing dragon of clouds because they are so hot and big that they create their own weather.

In a worst-case scenario, fire crews on the ground could see one of the monster clouds spawn a fire tornado," generate its own dry lightning and create dangerous hot winds below. They can also send particulate matter from the smoke column up to 10 miles (16 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.

So far, most of the clouds on the Bootleg Fire have been the less-intense fire clouds, but the National Weather Service on Wednesday spotted a pyrocumulonimbus cloud forming on what it called terrifying satellite imagery.

Please send positive thoughts and well wishes to the firefighters. … Its a tough time for them right now, the weather service said in a tweet.

HOW DANGEROUS ARE THESE CLOUDS?

Both types of fire clouds pose serious risks for firefighters.

Multiple pyrocumulus clouds have been spotted for four consecutive days, and one of them on the southern flank of the fire partially collapsed Thursday, causing dangerous winds and embers to fall on crews.

That prompted the emergency evacuation of all firefighters and dirt-moving equipment from that part of the fire line. Authorities say there have been no reported injuries.

Were expecting those exact same conditions to develop today and even worsen into the weekend, fire spokeswoman Holly Krake said Friday.

WHERE ELSE HAVE THESE CLOUDS FORMED?

These types of fire-induced clouds are becoming more common as climate change lengthens and intensifies the wildfire season across the U.S. West and in other places, including Australia.

A wildfire in British Columbia last month that leveled an entire town also generated a pyrocumulonimbus cloud.

Blazes in California in 2020 and in the years before have created multiple pyrocumulus clouds, with the Creek Fire in the Fresno area generating a mighty pyrocumulonimbus cloud last fall.

Australia’s bush fire siege in January 2020 also produced pyrocumulonimbus clouds that threatened to produce a fire tornado.

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Colorado’s Suburban Firestorm Shows the Threat of Climate-Driven Wildfires is Moving Into Unusual Seasons and Landscapes

Backyard fences, decks and landscaping helped spread the flames through suburban neighborhoods and shopping malls baked by global warming.

By Bob Berwyn
January 7, 2022

The Marshall Fire continued to burn out of control on Dec. 30, 2021 in Broomfield, Colorado. Credit: RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

When he saw smoke in the air around Boulder, Colorado on Dec. 30, Tom Veblen walked up a trail near his home to check it out. Veblen, a professor emeritus of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder who has been studying forest ecology, wildfires and climate change since the mid-1970s, said he could see that the Marshall Fire, on the southern edge of the city, was already jumping over distances of several hundred yards.

The winds were so strong that he said he struggled to open his car door, and to stay on his feet in the powerful gusts. Wooden fences separating yards in the suburbs sprawling in the distance looked like burning fuses, as winds gusting faster than 100 mph pushed the flames along them to ignite decks, roofs and residential landscaping. The firestorm would eventually engulf shopping malls and a hotel.

As a resident of a neighborhood he had previously believed to be a safe distance from the fire-prone forests, Veblen felt a sudden and unfamiliar sense of vulnerability.

“Sure, I knew that Chinook winds could drive winter grassland fires to spread very rapidly, but in the past we just did not have all the driving factors align so perfectly—wet spring producing abundant grass fuels, one of the warmest and driest June-Decembers on record and then an ignition at the base of the mountains.” Local topography also contributed to the intensity, with a canyon opposite the fire acting like a nozzle, blasting winds from the peaks onto the flames and pushing the fire east into suburban neighborhoods.

The Marshall Fire ultimately burned some 6,200 acres, destroying at least 1,084 homes and seven commercial structures, before it was largely smothered by a New Year’s Eve snowfall. On Wednesday, investigators reported they had found partial human remains assumed to be those of one of the two people still missing after the fire. Insured losses are estimated at about $1 billion, making it Colorado’s most destructive fire on record in terms of property loss.

In the days since the fire, Veblen said he’s had many conversations with neighbors and friends, some feeling a combination of survivor’s guilt and post traumatic stress disorder, and all wondering how worried they should be about wildfires burning into suburbia in the future.

“I told them that, this winter, we’re probably going to be OK,” he said. But with the warming and drying climate shortening the snow season and desiccating grasses and brush more each year, chances are growing that similar drought, heat and wind will align more frequently to drive wildfires into the cold seasons and developed landscapes where they were once rare.

In the meantime, few residents of rapidly expanding suburbs in which most of the vegetation has been planted by homeowners and developers realize that they are living in an expanding “Wildland Urban Interface,” or WUI, in which wildfires can threaten their homes and lives. In some areas with little natural vegetation, wooden fences and decks, wood-framed houses, flammable roofs and landscaping are the biggest source of fuel, which can burn down into glowing chunks that are lofted by high winds to help a fire hopscotch through neighborhoods.

“We could have another fire starting in Sunshine Canyon in some of those grassy areas and burn right down into Boulder,” he said. “We could call it a freak event, but we know that it’s not. It’s just a matter of those conditions setting up again.”

Jordan Hymes gets a hug from her grandmother Nancy Grigon, left, as her grandfather Guy, right, looks towards their burned out subdivision in the Coal Creek Ranch subdivision in the aftermath of the Marshall Fire on Dec. 31, 2021 in Louisville, Colorado. Hymes and her family lost their home of ten years. The fire may have potentially burned 1,000 homes and numerous business. The fast moving fire was stocked by extremely dry drought conditions and fierce winds, with gusts topping 100 mph, along the foothills. Credit: Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A visit Friday to the towns devastated by the Marshall Fire by President Biden, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Boulder), could help jump-start the conversations needed to address the threat, he said.

“The important message our society needs to hear from them is that this is an example of a climate-enabled event, and the probability of similar events will continue to increase as we have continued warming,” he said. “Unless we keep fossil fuels in the ground, these events are going to get more frequent and worse.”
New Climate, New Fuels and New Fires

“It’s clear the climate change is increasing the likelihood of these types of events,” said University of Montana fire ecologist Phil Higuera, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying the relative influence of climate, vegetation and human activity on wildfire trends.

“What I don’t want to see is a reaction of, ‘Oh, this is such an extreme event that we can’t do anything about it,’” he said. “Yes, this fire was very bad luck, but we shouldn’t be rolling the dice with fire in December.”

Yet research, including a landmark 2019 study of fire weather indices, shows that global warming is loading those dice for more winter fires. Warmer temperatures and decreasing precipitation increasingly leave fuels like trees and brush tinder dry late in autumn and early winter, and increase the probability that snow-free Decembers will leave grasses, decks and roofs uncovered and vulnerable to wind-driven sparks and embers that could ignite them.

What used to be the start of the season that brought snow to the West and cool, rainy conditions to many other parts of the country is now sometimes more like late summer. Even if global warming didn’t ignite the Marshall Fire, “there really is a seasonality change that is the main climate factor,” said UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain, who studies extremes like fires and floods. “Usually by this time of year, there is just more moisture on the ground.”

For more than 20 years the region has endured alarmingly rapid aridification that has shrunk snowpacks, dried up river flows and lowered groundwater levels. Denver, just south of the Marshall Fire, experienced one of its longest snowless stretches on record just prior to the blaze, while much of the West blistered through an extreme autumn heat wave.

Winter fires are not unheard of in Colorado, or in grassland like where the Marshall Fire was first sighted, Swain noted.

“That is not quite as surprising as what happened next,” he said. “It started there, burned a few hundred acres within 10-15 minutes, then it came across shopping malls … a significant extent of tract homes, a fair bit of vegetation in people’s yards and city parks. This is not a wild place, not a remote place.”

“That’s why we get these eerie images,” he said, alluding to social media posts of people fleeing from shopping mall pizza parlors and medical workers watching the fire from a hospital window as near-hurricane force wind gusts pushed fire and smoke plumes east into the towns of Superior, with a population of 13,077, and Louisville, with 20,860 residents.

The images of fires around shopping malls are jarring, Swain said, “And yet as bewildering as it is, we’ve seen it in any number of large, wind-driven fires in recent years.”

Swain said several recent California fires were similar to the Marshall Fire, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire that burned more than 5,000 structures in Santa Rosa, the 2018 Camp Fire that killed more than 80 people when it destroyed the town of Paradise, and the Carr Fire, also in 2018, which jumped the Sacramento River in Northern California to spread into Redding, a city of 90,000 people.

Swain said the temperatures on the day of the Marshall Fire ignited were unremarkable for December in Boulder, with highs in the 40s. But that contrasted sharply with a “multi-month period of almost continuously balmy and record-warm temperatures leading up to this event, with many days making into the 60s and 70s during October and November and overnight lows rarely getting below freezing,” he said. “It was those antecedent record warm and dry conditions that were key in setting the stage.”

And the winds that drove the fire were like nothing he had ever encountered before. “The strongest I have ever experienced anywhere in the world while outdoors,” said Swain, who had to wear protective glasses to protect his eyes from airborne pebbles and roof shingles, with gusts “rushing downward over the Front Range foothills, creating very erratic windflow and occasional tornado-strength vortices. At one point, I witnessed one of these clear-air vortices cross the road and uproot a tree.”

With the increasing confluence of extreme fire weather conditions like high winds and extended droughts and heat waves, “there are a lot of places that are at similar risk, including many of the suburban areas around the Front Range,” Swain said. “But it’s really hard to prepare. There aren’t any simple interventions.”
Preparing for Wildfires in Suburbia

One part of the solution clearly lies in revising building codes to ensure that most construction and landscaping materials are non-flammable, even in areas that appear to be far from wildfire threats, said Veblen, an expert in the geography of fire. Such measures are becoming more common in areas where fire hazards are widely recognized, and the destruction of the Marshall Fire could inform how the boundaries of those zones are drawn in the future.

Since fires cross between jurisdictions, Veblen said that state rules would be most useful, but are unlikely to happen in Colorado, a home rule state where most land use decisions are made by local governments. So that leaves it up to county commissioners, “who need to feel they have the political support of the people so they can resist the influence of the building and real estate interests, which nearly always oppose any mandatory measures that make building more costly,” he said.

A meaningful change to building practices could also be spurred by the insurance industry, which could make sure that people who, for example, build with flame-resistant brick, pay less for fire insurance policies than those who build with flammable materials.

Apart from the built environment, he said the Marshall Fire will also trigger some “serious rethinking” of wildfire mitigation and the management of open space and parklands, which are among the key amenities that make the nearby homes desirable in the first place.

“We know that up until 1950 it was mostly ranchland,” he said, with grazing cattle keeping grasses short and less prone to fire. Residential development started after World War II and accelerated in the 1970s.

“The most important thing we’ve done is change the fuels by putting structures all over the foothill ecotone,” Veblen said. Some early reports on the Marshall Fire suggest the fire may have slowed down when it reached one of the few small areas where cattle still munch the grass, so it could be that managed grazing could be a fire mitigation strategy, he added. Restoring wetlands and stream corridors to the point that they sustain live vegetation could also help by adding moist fire buffers to the landscape.

The Marshall Fire and similar blazes burning in unusual landscapes and seasons could also challenge assumptions about how to reduce the wildfire hazard in areas far from the towns that burned—the fire-prone zone where forests spill off the lower slopes of the Rockies onto the plains. There, the long-standing thinking has been to thin woody fuels.

“But if you thin out ponderosa pine, it increases resources for grass to grow,” Veblen said. “So we said, ‘Sure, let’s have some grass fires, that will be beneficial.’ But no one was thinking about this. Wow, this fire event is changing my perspective on where it is or is not safe from fire.”

Bob Berwyn
Reporter, Austria
Bob Berwyn an Austrian-based freelance reporter who has covered climate science and international climate policy for more than a decade. Previously, he reported on the environment, endangered species and public lands for several Colorado newspapers, and also worked as editor and assistant editor at community newspapers in the Colorado Rockies.

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Death Valley hits 130 degrees as temperature records fall across California

Rebecca Falconer AXIOS


Death Valley National Park, California. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

A Southern Californian thermometer at Death Valley's Furnace Creek reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, AUGUST 16, 2020 per the National Weather Service (NWS).

Why it matters: If verified, it would be Earth's hottest temperature since at least 1931, the most scorching August day on record and the third-highest temperature ever recorded, per the Washington Post. Records were broken across California over the weekend, as the heat wave triggered wildfires and rolling power outages.

Of note: The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was considered to be at Death Valley in 1913, when a reading of 134°F was observed. But analysis by climate experts in 2016 found this was "essentially not possible from a meteorological perspective."

Yes, but: Randy Cerveny, who heads the World Meteorological Organisation's weather and climate extremes team, told WashPost, the latest observation seemed "legitimate."
"I am recommending that the World Meteorological Organisation preliminarily accept the observation," Cerveny added.

The big picture: The NWS said temperature records were set in several other places in California on Sunday, including in Palmdale and Lancaster airports (both hit 111°F) and LAX International Airport (93°F) — and Paso Robles Airport tied its record for the month at 114°F.
"Blistering, widespread excessive heat" has struck across the western U.S., the NWS' Weather Prediction Center notes.

"Storms with abundant lightning from Nevada/eastern California northeastward through southwestern Montana is expected to start new fires or increase fire activity. Isolated severe storms capable of strong wind gusts are expected across parts of eastern Oregon into far southwest Idaho and southern Arizona."— NWS Weather Prediction Center


California plagued by scorching heat (130 degrees!), lightning, blackouts and even fire tornadoesPublished: Aug. 16, 2020 By Mike Murphy

Warning of rolling blackouts through Wednesday, as wildfires rage and much of the state sizzles

Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge early Sunday. 

 ASSOCIATED PRESS

After a weekend of wild and scorching weather, California residents were warned Sunday to brace for the likelihood of rolling blackouts through Wednesday.

More than 200,000 PG&E Corp. PCG, -2.55% customers in Northern California lost power Saturday in the state’s first sequence of rolling blackouts since the Enron-stoked statewide energy crisis of 2000-’01. Another 200,000 customers apparently got a reprieve Sunday night, as PG&E tweeted that forecast evening outages — typically lasting an hour or two — would not be needed as demand was expected to be met.

Last year, broad swaths of California were intentionally blacked out to reduce wildfire risks on days with high winds, but the current blackouts are unrelated to that. This time around, “There is not a sufficient amount of energy to meet the high amounts of demand during the heat wave,” California’s Independent System Operator said Sunday. The nonprofit public benefit corporation urged energy conservation for the next several days.

Conditions were exacerbated, Cal ISO said, by the “unexpected loss” of a 470-megawatt power plant Saturday and a loss of 1,000 megawatts of wind power, as well as a greater reliance on solar energy, which can be disrupted by cloud cover.

The blackouts came amid a surge in energy usage as homes cranked up the air conditioning to counter a widespread and intense heat wave, straining the state’s energy grid even though a large number of businesses remain closed due to the pandemic.

Triple-digit heat gripped much of the state, topped by an eye-popping reading of 130 degrees in Death Valley on Sunday. If confirmed, that would rank as the first time Death Valley — historically the hottest spot in the country — has hit 130 degrees since 1913, the National Weather Service said.

In Northern California, the heat was accompanied by a rare summer thunderstorm that brought spectacular lightning strikes around the San Francisco Bay Area early Sunday, sparking a number of small fires. Wind gusts in some places reached 75 mph.

Nearly 5,000 lightning strikes were recorded around the state by 6 a.m. Sunday.

“This is probably the most widespread and violent summer thunderstorm event in memory for Bay Area, & it’s also one of the hottest nights in years,” tweeted Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist.

Forecasters said conditions were ripe for a repeat early Monday, potentially sparking more fires.

While lightning-caused fires around the Bay Area were mopped up Sunday, larger wildfires continued to rage in other parts of California. The Lake Fire, in the mountains north of Los Angeles, near Lancaster, had burned nearly 28 square miles as of Sunday night, with just 12% containment.

Another blaze, dubbed the Loyalton Fire, near the state line north of Lake Tahoe, has burned more than 45 square miles and spurred evacuation orders for remote communities.

That fire spurred the first-ever warning Saturday for a “firenado” — an event caused when ground winds whip flames higher, into a tornado-like spiral. The National Weather Service issued the warning for “fire-induced tornadoes” and warned fire crews to use extreme caution.

Rare summer thunderstorm sparks new wildfires across California

Associated Press, NBC News•August 16, 2020

LOS ANGELES — A rare summer thunderstorm brought lightning that sparked several small blazes in Northern California on Sunday and stoked a huge wildfire that has forced hundreds of people from their homes north of Los Angeles.

More than 4,500 buildings remained threatened by the fire burning toward thick, dry brush in the Angeles National Forest. Firefighters already battling the blaze in steep, rugged terrain with scorching heat faced more hurdles when hundreds of lightning strikes and winds up to 15 mph pushed the flames uphill.

“We set up a containment line at the top of the hills so the fire doesn’t spill over to the other side and cause it to spread, but it was obviously difficult given the erratic wind and some other conditions,” said fire spokesman Jake Miller.

The Lake Fire was just 12% contained Sunday and has burned nearly 28 square miles of brush and trees. Fire officials said 33 buildings had been destroyed, including at least a dozen homes.

Temperatures reached more than 110 degrees and a pyrocumulus created erratic fire behavior, fire spokesman Tom Ewald said.

Thunderstorm and excessive heat were also a concern for firefighters battling a blaze that blackened almost 4 square miles in the foothills above the Los Angeles suburb of Azusa. The fire, believed to be started Thursday by a homeless man, is only 3% contained.

Many areas of the state saw triple-digit temperatures through the weekend and the combination of prolonged heat and smoke from wildfires sent ozone pollution to levels not seen in a decade in some areas. Air quality may reach unhealthy to very unhealthy levels in several regions of Southern California on Sunday and Monday afternoons, the South Coast Air Quality Management District said.

In Northern California, moisture from an offshore tropical storm fueled a thunderstorm that brought nonstop lightning strikes early Sunday, some of which ignited small fires and knocked out power across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Wind gusts reached 75 mph (121 kph), according to the National Weather Service, which said another round of lightning may develop early Monday.

“This is probably the most widespread and violent summer thunderstorm event in memory for Bay Area, & it’s also one of the hottest nights in years,” tweeted Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Unsettling weather triggered an unusual warning by the weather service of a fire-induced tornado at an out-of-control forest fire that broke out north of Lake Tahoe on Saturday afternoon.

A massive fire cloud known as a pyrocumulonimbus formed over the fire, which started east of the town of Loyalton, about 40 miles west of Reno, Nevada. When high winds collided with the fire and whipped it into the air, a spectacular tornado-shaped spiral of flames was formed.

The fire has burned at least 45 square miles and triggered evacuation orders for sparsely populated communities along State Route 395 by the California-Nevada border, said Tahoe National Forest spokesman Joe Flannery.

Firefighters aided by water-dropping helicopters and air tankers faced “extreme fire behavior,” he said, and worked through the night to extinguish spot fires and protect threatened structures.

At one point, the fast-moving fire jumped a highway and came dangerously close to a fire truck. A fire crew from Truckee tweeted a video of firefighters dragging hoses as they ran alongside a moving truck that was dodging the flames.

Ryan Peel said firefighters created some defensive space around his slot machine distribution warehouse in Chilcoot, but he was worried the erratic winds could still put his business in the line of fire.

“Yesterday was extremely emotional, as we were at the mercy of the wind and the unpredictability of the fire,” Peel said. “I was stressed and terrified at the idea of losing everything I’ve spent my life working for.”

With zero containment and strong winds in the forecast, he said, “we are not out of the woods yet.”

PHOTO ESSAY
Inside the Cocoanut Grove disaster, America's deadliest nightclub fire that killed 492 people in 15 minutes

The fire moved so fast it's still described as a mystery. Casey Grant, executive director emeritus of the Fire Protection Research Foundation, said the shape of the foyer ceiling sent the fire onward, "almost like out of a shotgun." As flames and smoke filled the club, panic ensued.
 

Source: Boston Globe

Then the club went dark. Joyce Mekelburg told the Boston Globe, "Everybody around me was screaming and crawling. Nobody knew where to go or how to go and everybody was crawling in a different direction."
 

Dead, dying and injured lie in street outside Cocoanut Grove while civilians and doctors administer aid. A girl walks in horror through the prone victims, seeking a loved one. This tragic scene was the aftermath of a fire which broke out in the Boston Night Club last night. Bettmann/ Corbis / Getty
Source: Boston Globe

People were losing consciousness due to the thick fumes. Bodies began to pile up, blocking the exits. One doctor told the Boston Globe, "They never had a chance. They never knew what happened."
 

Boston City firefighters and policemen and emergency service workers jam the street outside the Cocoanut Grove Night Club during sudden fire that swept the club before patrons had a chance to escape, Nov. 28, 1942. AP
Sources: Boston.com, Baltimore Sun

So many people died because management had locked doors to ensure people didn't leave without paying. Other doors only opened inwards, which made them unusable in the dark. The club's main entrance had a revolving door, which jammed due to the volume of people trying to get out.
 

This is what remains of the revolving door of the Cocoanut Grove night club where scores of patrons died trying to get out during a fire in the Back Bay section of Boston last night, seen Nov. 29, 1942 AP Sources: Harvard Crimson, National Archives

Outside, fireman arrived quickly. A rare stroke of good luck meant some firefighters were in the area after responding to a car fire. Those on hand grabbed axes to break windows.

Smoke pours from the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, right, during a fire in the Back Bay section of Boston, where 492 people died and hundreds more were injured. AP
Source: Boston Globe, National Fire Protection Association

But it was chaotic. The street was also filled with police, servicemen, and civilians. US Naval reserveman Nick Pagonis said in a police interview, which was publicly released in 2012, "It seemed to me that all those rescue workers were in the way. They held back those who wanted to help. The whole picture was very disgusting."

Police remove the burned body of a victim of a sudden fire that swept the Cocoanut Grove Night Club in Boston, Ma., the night of November 28, 1942. AP
Sources: Boston Globe, National Fire Protection Association, National Archives

Some did get out. But in the panic, people were separated from loved ones. A 21-year-old man named Clifford Johnson lost sight of his date as he was pushed into the open. He went back inside four times to try and save her, before he collapsed, covered in horrific burns.

This tragic scene outside of the fire-ravaged ruins which once were the swank Coconut Grove, shows dead or injured victims lying on the street waiting to be taken to hospitals or morgues. Bettmann / Getty Source: Herald Tribune

Some escaped through side doors, or climbed to the roof. According to the Baltimore Sun, two chorus girls jumped from the roof and were caught by two male dancers
 

Some of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club's luckier guests and employees escaped from the burning building through this side door. Others, who climbed to the roof, were brought to safety by this ladder, placed against the wall. Bettmann / Getty  Source: Baltimore Sun

Others survived by wetting handkerchiefs and covering their mouths. Daniel Weiss, one of the cashiers, covered his mouth with a soaked bar towel, and stayed close the ground. "The closer I was to the floor, the easier it was to breathe," he said.
 

Prokopos Spedalis, cook’s helper in the Cocoanut Grove night club in Boston, testifies at an inquest into the cause of the fire which took the lives of 450 guests, said, “I put a towel over my face like this,” as he told of leaving the kitchen to aid in smashing down a door to free a number of trapped guests, Dec. 1, 1942. Peter J. Carroll / AP Source: National Fire Protection Association

In little over an hour, the fire was out. Bodies were passed through the charred windows to waiting soldiers and sailors. It was so cold outside, below freezing, that puddles from the fire hoses froze over.
 

With stretchers and blankets for the burned victims, soldiers and sailors stand ready at the charred windows of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club. Bettmann / Getty
Sources: CBS News, National Fire Protection Association

An AP correspondent wrote, "When the last body was reported out I looked around the room of the ground floor. It was a shambles. Chairs and tables were upended, crockery and glassware was strewn everywhere, it was as if a tornado had whistled through the room."
 

A fireman surveys the ruins of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club, destroyed by fire last night (November 28). He stands beside a pole which was decorated to look like a coconut tree. Bettmann / Getty Source: Baltimore Sun

By midnight, the Cocoanut Grove was a charred, empty building. Despite what had happened within, the structure survived. The Sun called it a "huge brick oven," with little obvious damage to its walls and roof.
 

Firemen (rear) view the remains of Boston's Cocoanut Grove night club through the revolving doors leading to the tiny 10-foot-wide vestibule where stampeding guests were crushed and smothered as they tried to leave the burning club. Bettmann / Getty   Sources: Baltimore Sun, National Fire Protection Association

A priest administered last rites.
 

A priest is administering last rites to one of the victims of the tragic fire which claimed the lives of 399 persons. Bettmann / Getty

At least 400 persons were burned to death and more than 200 were injured when a fire swept through the Cocoanut Grove, the night of football celebration. Bettmann / Getty
 

Those still alive were sent to two nearby hospitals, Boston City and Massachusetts General. BCH got over 300 casualties, of which 132 lived longer than two hours. MGH got 114, of which 39 survived longer than two hours.  Later calculations worked out that BCH's victims came in at an astonishing rate of one victim every 11 seconds over a 75 minute period.

Because of the scope of the misfortune,

 neither hospitals charged any of the patients. 

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