Park Fire: Suspected Fire Tornado Seen on Video in California

On Thursday evening, smoke was developing in what appeared to be a fire tornado at the Park Fire, according to footage from UC San Diego’s AlertCalifornia live camera feed.

Cal Fire and the National Weather Service office in Sacramento could not confirm whether the event was a fire tornado or “firenado” — a rare atmospheric event in which flames and ash from a fire form a rotating column similar to a tornado.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability, said he wasn’t sure if a fire tornado could be “100 percent confirmed” based on Thursday’s images, but that the rapidly rotating plume of smoke seen in the images could be a “potential precursor” to a fire tornado.

Click to resize

“Meteorologically, there is very strong evidence from radar images that there was one,” Swain said.

Swain also said a fire tornado is possible again Friday afternoon due to a variety of factors, including meteorological conditions, unstable air and winds that have shifted direction.

The Park Fire, which started Wednesday night, had spread to more than 160,000 acres in Butte and Tehama counties by Friday morning, at a rate of 5,000 acres per hour. Containment dropped from 3% to zero, according to Cal Fire.

More than 4,000 residents remain evacuated and fire officials said Friday the fire could spread into Shasta and Lassen counties.

Fire tornadoes have previously been documented in Northern California during the 2021 Tennant Fire and the 2018 Carr Fire.