What Are Fire Tornadoes?

7/25/2021 (Permalink)

If your home or business has sustained fire damage from a fire, SERVPRO of Troup-Coweta Counties is here to restore the damage.

Remember when you were a kid and you would argue with your friends about who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman? Somebody would pick each side and pretend to be their favorite hero—“I’ve got Kryptonite, dude; no way you’re beating me.”

And eventually some genius would get the brilliant idea to combine the two comic book legends into one unbeatable, unstoppable force—and SuperBatman was born.

Our minds are fascinated by the thought of combining some of the most powerful things we can think of, to imagine new limits of what might be possible. It’s probably for this reason that the term “fire tornado” has such mystique. Each of those scenarios separately are enough to make one shudder, but combine them and the concept becomes truly magnificent.

A fire tornado, also called a pyrogenetic tornado, is defined by the U.S. Forest Service as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris, and flame,” which means essentially what it sounds like it means—it’s a SuperBatman-level event, equal parts epic and rare.

The difference between a fire tornado and a regular tornado is that while tornadoes form from the sky downward to the earth, fire tornadoes form on the ground and climb skyward.

In fact, it may be more accurate to think of the event as a tornadic fire—it’s the heat of the fire that causes the tornado, as hot air flows upward, air rushes in from the sides to fill the space and wind shear from different directions creates the rotation.

We are still learning about fire tornadoes, and learning to distinguish different types of events that might also be called fire whirls or firestorms. But the research we have shows they’re incredibly powerful. A fire tornado recorded in 2018 spun with the force of an EF-3 tornado, and its vortex reached an astonishing height of 17,000 feet.

They don’t always have to be massive, though. The conditions necessary for a fire tornado have been reproduced in small laboratory fires, and it’s possible you could even see one in your backyard bonfire. (No need to worry about that one reaching to the heavens.)

Fire is incredibly powerful, powerful enough to create its own localized weather system complete with cyclones and ice clouds (yeah, we didn’t even get into that part). Fire tornadoes, fascinating though they may be, are one more reminder to us that we must always respect the danger of fire in any shape or size.

If your home or business has sustained fire damage from a blaze of any nature, SERVPRO is here to restore the damage and remove soot and smoky smells. Get in touch today to get the pros on your side.