What is 'firenado', terrifying twister seen amid Palisades Fire in Los Angeles? | Video

The firenado emerged on Friday night and was captured on camera, with the footage going viral on social media.

A terrifying “firenado” was spotted amid the Palisades Fire in the Los Angeles area of California province in the United States.

The 'firenado' amid the Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles (X)

The firenado emerged on Friday night and was captured on camera, with the footage going viral on social media.

What is a “firenado”?

A firenado (fire+ tornado) is a fire whirl – a spinning column of hot air and gases rising up from a blaze. When the air and gases rise, they also carry smoke, debris, and even fire, as seen in the vortex of the blaze in the clip.

While the vortices can be as small as under one foot wide to over 500 feet wide, larger fire whirls can be as strong as a small tornado.

Larger whirls (wind speeds of up to EF-2 scale tornadoes) have uprooted trees, toppled vehicles, and torn roofs from homes, as per the US Forest Service, Fox Weather reported.

The National Weather Service (NWS) reported that one of the largest recent fire whirls occurred during the 2018 Carr Fire at Redding, also in California. It had wind speeds of up to 143 mph, equivalent to those in the EF-3 tornadoes

Japan's capital Tokyo witnessed the most destructive fire whirl on record, in 1923, the NWS noted. It was caused by fires which erupted across the metropolis after an earthquake, and killed around 38,000 people in under 15 minutes, the agency said.

The California wildfires

These began on Tuesday last week and currently, there are six active wildfires, including the Palisades one, in the Los Angeles area. These have killed at least 24 people, destroyed at least 12,000 homes and businesses and incinerated over 29,000 acres of land.