Social media lit up Wednesday with horror and amazement at a video showing a fire whirl in California
Sky5 video, which KTLA described as “incredible,” depicted a spinning wave of fire that developed during the Sam Fire in northwestern Los Angeles County.
While many observers, including KTLA called it a fire tornado, the Washington Post‘s Capital Weather Gang said the video showed a smaller-scale fire whirl, “which is not uncommon but this footage is uncommonly good, and scary.”
A fire whirl is defined as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris, and flame. Fire whirls range in size from less than one foot to more than 500 feet in diameter,” according to the U.S. Forest Service.
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The video of the weather phenomenon went viral, prompting all sorts of expressions of shock, terror, and sheer awe. “I don’t blame the earth for being angry at us….but mercy, please,” civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill said in a tweet.
Firefighters are working to put out the brush fire, which local authorities said Wednesday evening was nearly 150 acres and 60% contained.
