California's Creek Fire is not only the largest single wildfire in the state known for huge and destructive blazes, it spawned two rare firenados a day after the fire started earlier this month
One firenado -- short for fire tornado -- was rated an EF-2, with winds up to 125 miles per hour. The other had winds of up to 100 miles per hour and was rated an EF-1. They wreaked havoc across the rugged area, the result of "unprecedented fire behavior," government forecasters said Thursday.Fire tornadoes are created when the rising heat from a fire pulls in smoke, fire and dirt, creating a rotation vortex above the blaze, according to CNN meteorologist Haley Brink.
The historic wildfires California is experiencing this year have generated intense heat, causing the vortices to form, meteorologist Jerald Meadows at the National Weather Service office in Hanford, California, told CNN on Thursday.While Meadows can't say for certain the state is seeing more firenados than in the past, he said we will learn more as the technology has improved to track and monitor their formation.
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