Firenado - a rare weather event

[Sidney]

What began as a control burn, ended up turning into a RARE weather phenomena called a Firenado. Another one that makes you go hummm. Although I don't see any questionable clouds or anything, so I don't know if this type of thing can be "created".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUnE0tHcaI#t=61

[Fairy Friend]

I have seen twisters form with forest fires because the heat is so intense it starts to swirl. It doesn't usually happen with controlled burns but I guess if you factor in wind it could. I've seen this on the Weather Channel and its brush and tumble weeds flying on the outter rim because they are heavier then smoke which is mostly swirling. They showed a point where one of them was lit on fire and had a little smoke coming off of it's own. Concern because these will start fires where they don't want them. Sooo cool I've never seen it and the weather channel thought it was worth talking about.

[Atlas]

With original soundtrack:

viVgQEWYncQ

ADAMS COUNTY - A 150 acre, prescribed burn near the Rocky Mountain Arsenal grew out of control when a massive dust devil swept fire and tumble weeds in the firefighters direction. The prescribed burn happened around noon, Friday, March 14.

Video captures the moment the dust devil began and shows hundreds of tumble weeds catching fire before several firefighters run for safety. From a safe distance, the filming resumes. The unexpected dust devil ended up burning an extra acre of land but no property was damaged and no one was injured.

Thomas Rogers, a firefighter with South Metro Fire & Rescue, is the man behind the camera. In the seven years he has spent fighting flames he has never seen anything quite like this.


It was definitely interesting to see. I'm a fire buff as well as a weather buff and here I had a weather event and a fire event coming together and it was just really amazing to watch. There's nothing you can do except get out of the way and wait for it to calm down. Fire can change at any time, even on a prescribed burn, where we're in very controlled conditions, the unexpected can happen.
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/03/21/massive-dust-devil-forms-during-controlled-burn/6714071/

[Sidney]

Thanks Buars, thats the one I was trying to post!!Much appreciated.

[8Adamas8]

Dust devils are not tornados and cant become one either. They are harmless, unless it picks up a fire fuels itself 30 stories high and starts throwing flaming tumbleweeds everywhere of course. Drive 10 minutes in west Texas and you will see one. I've stood in the middle of one before, what you do when bored in El Paso, save some dust in the eyes and a little sting on the skin I wasn't carried off to Oz with Todo.

Looks cool but just had to throw in my two cents before anyone ran away with any weather modification ideas.
This is just a situation of circumstance really.

[dim]

. the little tree doesn't move at all
. people look almost indifferent, given the magnitude of the event
. the outer dark particles/dust/whatever doesn't look like or move like natural things, too slow ?

probably some small incident happened and some animator took care the rest

[Atlas]

. the little tree doesn't move at all
. people look almost indifferent, given the magnitude of the event
. the outer dark particles/dust/whatever doesn't look like or move like natural things, too slow ?

probably some small incident happened and some animator took care the rest

Well, in that case, firefighter Thomas Rogers (cameraman), Cindy Souders of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Brian Clark Howard of National Geographic (see link below) can find a new job!

"Fire Tornado" in Viral Video Explained (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140326-fire-tornado-controlled-burn-dust-devils-science/) (National Geographic)

A dramatic video that went viral this week shows a "fire tornado" whirling above a Colorado prairie. The swirling flames occurred during a controlled burn that "posed no threat to firefighters," according to a government spokesperson.

Cindy Souders of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told National Geographic that the fire tornado resulted from a planned controlled burn on March 14, 2013, at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (http://www.fws.gov/refuge/rocky_mountain_arsenal/) in Denver, Colorado. The Fish and Wildlife Service, working with the Forest Service and several regional fire departments, burned 150 acres that day.

"Weather conditions were within prescribed limits, and there were light and variable winds," says Souders. "At 3:30 there was an unpredicted wind shift to the north, which pushed the fire south to a small corner."

The combination of the heat from the fire and changing winds then resulted in a "fire whirl," says Souders. The phenomenon is also called a fire devil or fire tornado.

Fire tornadoes (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/flame-tornado-a-spinning-column-of-fire/) are most closely related to dust devils, and are distinct from the larger, more powerful tornadoes that develop from the large circulation patterns that can form in supercell thunderstorms. Dust devils form when hot air near the surface rises quickly through a cooler pocket of low-pressure air. As the air rises, it stretches vertically, which drives rotation.

Other hot air rushes in to the bottom of the vortex, and then rises up, intensifying the spinning. In the case of a fire whirl, the fire is what heats the air along the ground in the first place. The dramatic fire whirl in Colorado was caught on video and posted on YouTube by Thomas Rogers, a firefighter EMT with South Metro Fire and Rescue Station 39.

Why Burn?

The big clumps of vegetation seen swirling in the video are tumbleweeds, otherwise known as Russian thistle, an invasive species that, says Souders, has been plaguing the refuge. The purpose of the controlled burn was to beat back the thistle and to stimulate growth of native grasses, like switchgrass and Indian prairie grass, says Souders.

"The history of the prairie was to burn regularly, and it stimulates new growth," she says. In the recent past, people have suppressed fire in many places, but now many wildlife managers conduct controlled burns to maintain healthy prairies.

Burns on the 22-square-mile (57-square-kilometer) refuge help the land support 330 species of wildlife, including 70 head of bison, nesting bald eagles, and many grassland birds like larks.

On March 19, the agencies conducted another controlled burn on about 670 acres, but no fire tornadoes appeared, says Souders.

Windy Place

"We get whirlwind patterns here regularly," Souders says of the refuge, which often experiences shifting winds. "On some days you can watch tumbleweeds rolling across the refuge."

The fire tornado in the video lasted about 10 minutes, she says, and covered an area of about 1.6 acres, a little larger than a football field.

"We had six [fire] engines on-site at that time and it was a contained event, so it was never a threat to anyone or the firefighters," says Souders. "It was a brief flare-up."

[dim]

don't know what to say, i watched it few times
must be very weightless vegetables and a very stiff tree but the firemen can keep their jobs :p

[Roisin]

Let us not forget Sharksunami's, they're pretty awesome too! Here's a photochop I did at Freaking News showing that type of catastrophic event....:p

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/ad164/A99_x/SHARKSUNAMI--114067.jpg (http://s932.photobucket.com/user/A99_x/media/SHARKSUNAMI--114067.jpg.html)

[8Adamas8]

don't know what to say, i watched it few times
must be very weightless vegetables and a very stiff tree but the firemen can keep their jobs :p

Here is another video of tumbleweeds.

2XBZ9qYDxFs

The greatest homage to the tumbleweed.

4tiPOMd14eQ

And for laughs. Warning strong language.

KlT_6pdn_rM

Hope that clears things up for you dim.

[DeDukshyn]

Thanks Buars, thats the one I was trying to post!!Much appreciated.

I actually thought that was one of the few times where a death metal tune actually fit reasonably well with a nature video ... ;)

Definitely a cool vid!