As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather. The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which

Fire tornadoes, also known as fire whirls, fire devils, or firenadoes, are a rare and dangerous weather phenomenon that can occur during intense wildfires. These swirling columns of fire and ash look like tornadoes but they form differently from regular tornadoes that develop along the base of thunderstorms.