By Brooke Baitinger
The Sacramento Bee
DENVER — A rare weather phenomenon that looks like the stuff of nightmares formed as wildfires raged across thousands of acres in Colorado and Utah, videos show.
Smoke and flames whirled across charred plains of grass and trees, videos taken July 12 and July 13 show.
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South Metro Fire Rescue shared video of two fire whirls spiraling up into the sky on July 13 . One of the firenadoes seems to suffocate while one rages on furiously.
The department responded to multiple vegetation fires near Centennial, about a 15-mile drive southeast from Denver .
Firenados can be dangerous because they “can spread quickly and create more sparks” that can set off even more wildfires, meteorologist Greg Perez told KDVR.
“They occur when hot air rises rapidly in columns,” the outlet reported. “As more hot air rises quickly, the wind starts to spin, which creates a fire whirl. It’s essentially hot air rising, which then fuels the flames.”
Another video shows what looks like four cyclones sucking flames up into the sky in Louviers, about a 20-mile drive southwest from Centennial.
“I’m starting to get in on some firenado action from the fires near Louviers, CO!” storm chaser and forecaster Elliot Baugh said in a July 13 post on the social media site X.
In Utah, the state fire service confirmed in a post on Facebook that a fiery vortex had formed over the Deer Creek Fire July 12 and caused even more destruction to the area near the state’s shared border.
Video shows a thick cyclone of smoke and fire reaching up into the sky.
“This event stirred flames high into the air and caused additional structure damage in the area,” Utah Fire Info said in the post. “No one was hurt during this uncommon weather phenomenon.”
The vortex damaged a Bureau of Land Management fire engine, which was pulled from fire operations for repairs.
“This looks like something from a sci-fi movie,” someone said in the comments on the post.
Firefighters made progress the next day during more typical weather conditions, the agency said.
“Several other wildfires are still active in Colorado, including the Sowbelly Fire in the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area , the South Rim Fire in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and wildfires in Mesa County,” the outlet reported.
How do firenadoes form?
A fire-fueled thunderstorm cloud can form on top of a wildfire’s smoke plume, allowing the plume to grow vertically very quickly, Neil Lareau , a scientist and professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, told the Sacramento Bee in 2018.
When the plumes grow, a wind condition called shear happens near the ground. Shear is a wind pattern in which wind is blowing in two opposite directions very close to each other — Lareau compared it to a busy freeway with a center divider.
The wind blowing in opposite directions is what formed the tornado’s spin, Lareau said. He said it’s similar to how a paddle wheel, placed in the center divider of the busy freeway, would begin to spin rapidly.
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