California's Shasta County is dealing with the 6th-worst fire in state history, which has killed 6 people and burned over 130,000 acres. The Carr fire, which is just 39% contained and being fought by oiver 4,300 fire personnel, has destroyed over 1,500 structures and is threatening another 1,300. Thousands of residents have been evacuated, while Yosemite Valley gave people until Noon on Friday to leave the area.
This is how fast the Carr Fire is spreading in Northern California https://t.co/dXcwM87BB5 pic.twitter.com/rU3jNRwyHM— CNN (@CNN) August 3, 2018
— Active NorCal (@ActiveNorCal) August 3, 2018
Large fires such as the Carr can produce their own unique weather paterns - and this was no exception. On July 26, the inferno unleashed a "fire tornado" that was so strong it uprooted trees and stripped away their bark. The National Weather Service on Thursday said that the vortex reached in excess of 143 MPH - equivalent to an EF-3 on the enhanced Fujita tornado scale.
The NWS & @CAL_FIRE Serious Accident Review Team (SART) are conducting a storm damage survey regarding the large fire whirl that occurred Thursday evening in Redding. Preliminary indicators placed max wind speeds achieved by the fire whirl in excess of 143 mph. #cawx#CarrFire pic.twitter.com/3iRX90lhLJ
— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) August 2, 2018
“This is historic in the U.S.,” Craig Clements, director of San Jose State University’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory, told BuzzFeed News. “This might be the strongest fire-induced tornado-like circulation ever recorded.”
Known as a pyrocumulus cloud, the ominous red weather formations usually occur over volcanic eruptions or forest fires when intensely heated air triggers an upward motion that pushes smoke and water vapor to rapidly rise. They can develop their own weather patters, including thunderstorms with severe winds which then further fan the flames.
The tornado formed as the blaze, which has already charred an area three times as large as the District of Columbia, erupted and began to rotate like a supercell thunderstorm. Initially the smoke plume reached about 20,000 feet. That’s not overly impressive for a thunderstorm, but it couldn’t rise any higher: It was trapped beneath an inversion.
That “cap” in the atmosphere caused the smoke to spread out. But around 7:15 p.m. Pacific time, two plumes suddenly managed to break the cap. They rose into an unstable environment and exploded upward, towering to nearly 40,000 feet within just 30 minutes. That extreme, rapid vertical growth of the fire fueled an updraft that eventually would spawn the tornado. -WaPo
It was the most intense tornado in California history.
But unlike most tornadoes, this vortex had a swirl of flames that reached an unprecedented 143 mph as it barreled toward Redding and scraped the bark off trees, uprooted trunks and incinerated homes, the National Weather Service announced Thursday.
The fire vortex that launched the Carr Fire over the Sacramento River ranked a three on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which rates the intensity of tornadoes.
“The EF-3 equivalent rating (winds over 143 mph) would suggest that it is likely the most intense tornado-like feature in California history, even though the Carr Fire vortex may not have been a ‘tornado’ in the formal sense,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in an email.
Though fire vortices of similar magnitude have occurred in remote areas in the past, he added, the fire whirl that erupted near Redding is the strongest documented in the U.S. The terrifying weather event provided yet another record in what’s been a premature and cataclysmic wildfire season in California.
The 17 wildfires raging through California destroyed more homes Friday as crews worked to strengthen containment lines, officials said.
The deadly Carr Fire burned to 131,896 acres, over 6,000 acres more than the previous day, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
It’s estimated that the wind that developed into a cyclone of flames and pushed the Carr Fire reached over 143 mph, said Mike Kochasic, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” he said.
The Carr Fire has destroyed 1,067 homes, 19 commercial buildings and 481 outbuildings, making it the sixth most destructive wildfire in California history.
On Friday, more than 4,000 firefighters were battling the inferno that has killed two firefighters and continues to threaten 1,358 structures. Four other people were also killed in the fire.
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