Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Brazilian Bush Fire Tornado YouTube Video

There was some video going around today of bush fires in Brazil turning into a Fire Tornado (or a "Fire Whirl").

I found a clip on YouTube, so if you didn't see it, here you go:

In case you were curious, here's some info from Wikipedia on Fire Whirls:

Wikipedia - Fire Whirl (Fire Tornado)
A fire whirl, colloquially fire devil or fire tornado, is a rare phenomenon in which a fire, under certain conditions (depending on air temperature and currents), acquires a vertical vorticity and forms a whirl, or a tornado-like vertically oriented rotating column of air. Fire whirls may be whirlwinds separated from the flames, either within the burn area or outside it, or a vortex of flame, itself.

An extreme example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo.[1] Another example is the numerous large fire whirls (some tornadic) that developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California on April 7, 1926, several of which produced significant structural damage well away from the fire, killing two. Thousands of whirlwinds were produced by the four-day-long firestorm coincident with conditions that produced severe thunderstorms, in which the larger fire whirls carried debris 5 kilometers (3 mi) away.[2]


Screenshot taken from Video by itnnews on YouTube


Kim said...

So scary! You will be toasted once you get near here...

Blogger said...

Ever wanted to get free YouTube Views?