California wildfire spawns ‘firenado’ as tornado warning issued amid heatwave
A wildfire in northern California spawned at least one fire tornado – or “firenado” – on Saturday, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning as the state continues to endure a heatwave and wildfires.
“Extremely dangerous fire behavior noted on the #LoyaltonFire! Rotating columns and potential for fire whirls,” NWS Reno tweeted on Saturday.
NWS Reno later said the “tornadic pyrocumulus has weakened & the immediate threat of tornadic activity has decreased for the #LoyaltonFire,” but warned that “extreme fire behavior will continue into this evening w/new Fire Tornadoes & strong gusts in excess of 60mph remain possible. Stay away from the fire area.”
The Loyalton fire in Lassen county, north east of Sacramento, has burned 20,000 acres and was 5% contained by early Sunday, according to CNN.
Large wildfires can heat air so much that huge clouds develop. In strong winds, these can rotate and sometimes produce a tornado. A fire tornado caught on film killed one person in 2018.
Officials in California, Oregon and Colorado have been battling a series of wildfires that have collectively torched more than 100,000 acres amid an intense heatwave.
A severe lightning storm also hit the San Francisco Bay Area early Sunday morning, a rare weather event for August that triggered wildfires in the region.
The NWS on Sunday extended a red flag fire warning for “critical fire weather conditions” for the Bay Area until Monday morning.
“Any lightning strikes will likely lead to new fire starts given the current heat wave,” the NWS forecasters warned. “A secondary pulse of moisture and instability arrives later Sunday into early Monday.”
The storm came as California faces a heatwave of triple-digit temperatures, and after thousands of households across the state suffered brief power outages – the first rolling outages in nearly 20 years.
The California Independent System Operator (California ISO) said in a statement that the brief rolling blackouts throughout the state were caused by the failure of a power plant and the loss of wind power, and power was largely restored on Saturday night.California ISO ordered the first rolling outages in nearly 20 years on Friday when it directed utilities around the state to shed their power loads as air conditioning use soared.
The state’s three biggest utilities Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric turned off power to more than 410,000 homes and businesses for about an hour at a time until the emergency declaration ended nearly four hours later.
The heat wave has not just brought brutally high temperatures, but also increased wildfire danger and fears of coronavirus spread as people flock to beaches and parks for relief.
Records were set in Lake Elsinore, where the mercury hit 114F; Riverside at 109F and Gilroy at 108F, according to the National Weather Service. The high in Borrego Springs, in the desert northeast of San Diego, was 118F. Coastal cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles sweltered in 86F and 98F degrees, respectively.
Several cities opened cooling centers, but with limited capacity because of social distancing requirements. The state has seen more than 613,000 coronavirus cases.
“Stay home when possible. If it feels too hot indoors, seek cooler temps outside, keep physical distance, wear a face covering,” San Francisco’s department of emergency management tweeted.