Extreme forest fire in Alaska: Firenado

by Alexander Ac

As previously reported on "The Frog" blog, large wildfires are on the long-term rise accross Canada, USA, and Russia. The fire season is now in full swing and currently firefighters in several US states are fighting forest fires with 40 of them being uncontained. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) upped the national preparedness level on Tuesday to the highest level for the first time in 5 years.

A few days ago, a Youtube video showing a "Firenado" was posted by Douglas Burts, pilot of the aircraft; The starting image probably shows an uprooted tree thrown into the air. 

The Alaskan Division of Forestry posted on their FaceBook page following commentary:

"The Alaska Division of Forestry firefighter that captured the footage has never seen anything like it in his 20 years of firefighting. It is the kind of fire behavior you hear about but can't really believe. "A picture probably is worth a thousand words, but there are indeed times when a picture just doesn't do it justice. I've never seen anything like it until now." - Tim Whitesell. 


Thanks to Tim and the pilot Doug Burts (together serving as an Aerial Supervision Module) for sharing this footage."

We will se more and more of such extreme fire behavior as the "climate train is leaving the station".

For more information see also Robert Scribbler article, Huffington Post and Peter Sinclair.