Abby Brammell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvTgYyANy8endofvid
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By Mail Foreign Service

Vortex: Swirling smoke and a column of fire tears through brush on Hawaii's Big Island


As if a normal twister wasn't bad enough, a terrifying combination of strong winds and brush fires have combined to create this tornado of fire.

This extremely rare phenomenon was captured on camera as the unstoppable fire whirl tore through brush along a main road on Hawaii's Big Island.

Swirls of thick black smoke can be seen spinning in a vortex as flames leap more than 20ft from the ground.

The brush fire destroyed around 1,400 acres of land and is still continuing to burn on parts of the island after the Department of Land and Natural Resources managed to contain 60 per cent of the wildfires.

No injuries have been reported by the blaze but firefighters were forced to retreat to a safe distance after the fire whirl was created.

Fire whirls, also known as fire devils or fire tornados, are caused when a fire acquires a vertical vorticity and creates a while.


Twister: The fire tornado is created by unique conditions and can reach hundreds of feet into the air


It occurs when a column of warm, rising air is enveloped by flames - causing low pressure to appear around the ground.

Cooler air then rushes in to replace the rising air, creating a vortex which can pull flames up to hundreds of metres above the ground.

In 1923, a fire tornado ignited by the Great Kanto earthquake in Tokyo grew to the size of a large city and killed 38,000 people in just 15 minutes.

It comes after another fire tornado tore through crop fields in Aracatuba, southern Brazil, after months of drought.

The whirlwind of flames was also captured on camera as wildfires ravaged the area in the southern Sao Paulo state.


source : dailymail [endtext]