Fire whirl

A fire whirl, fire devil or fire tornado is a whirlwind induced by a fire and often (at least partially) composed of flame and/or ash. These start with a whirl of wind, often made visible by smoke, and may occur when intense rising heat and turbulent fire-caused wind conditions combine to form whirling eddies of air. These eddies can contract to a tornado-like vortex that ingests debris and combustible gases.

The phenomenon is sometimes labeled a fire tornado, firenado, fire swirl, or fire twister, but these terms usually refer to a separate phenomenon where a fire has such intensity that it generates an actual tornado, which an intensely rotating vortex (column of air) in contact with the surface and a cumuliform cloud above. Fire whirls are not usually classifiable as tornadoes as the vortex in most cases does not extend from the surface to cloud base. Also, even in such cases, those fire whirls very rarely are classic tornadoes, as their vorticity derives from surface winds and heat-induced lifting, rather than from a tornadic mesocyclone aloft.

Although directly fire-spawned in flammagenitus clouds and mesocyclones within fire-induced cumulonimbus flammagenitus were for decades known to occasionally produce tornadic firewhirls, the phenomenon came to wider attention after the 2003 Canberra bushfires and with the 2018 Carr Fire in California, the 2020 Loyalton Fire in California and Nevada, and the 2025 Deer Creek Fire in Utah.