Powerful fire forests broke out on the night from Wednesday to Thursday near the city of Chico in Butte County, California. The fire is raging over an area of over 66 thousand hectares. Investigators have already detained a 42-year-old man who is suspected of starting the fire. Witnesses saw him pushing his burning car into a ravine on Wednesday afternoon. car – he says “The New York Times”.
Massive California Fire and Fire Tornado
Forest fires in California was accompanied by an extremely rare but very dangerous phenomenon, which is a fire tornado. “In just over 24 hours, the fire spread to an area about four times the size of San Francisco,” wrote Colin McCarthy, an American scientist and storm chaser, on the X platform.
A fire tornado is the result of an intense fire, when the fire heats the ground so much that its temperature is drastically different from the air temperature. A cloud, pyrocumulonimbus, forms over such a strong fire. When this happens windthe hot air rising over the area, “sucks” smoke, dust and flames, creating a rotating vortex. This is the largest fire in California this year. On Friday morning, the services reported that it was only 3 percent contained. Authorities decided to evacuate about four thousand people.
Massive fires in the United States and Canada
Another major fire in USA is the one raging in Durkee, Oregon. According to local media reports, the blaze has killed hundreds of cattle and destroyed ranch land. Another blaze, located about 100 miles northwest of Boise, Idaho, was 20 percent contained by Thursday afternoon. Canada is also battling the blaze. Alberta has recorded 176 wildfires, 50 of which are out of control.
In the city of Jasper, a fire destroyed half of the buildings. Flames there reached a height of 100 meters and spread five kilometers in less than 30 minutes. In addition to emergency response teams from around the country, Canada plans to take in 400 firefighters from Mexico, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.