This Fire Made Its Own Thunderstorm

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]In Australia, a wildfire grew so hot it created its own weather system. Not a storm nearby. The fire made the storm itself.

[00:00:10]When a fire burns at extreme temperatures, the superheated air rises violently.

[00:00:15]That rising column spins as cold air rushes in from the sides. The result, a fire tornado reaching 1,000 m [music] into the sky.

[00:00:26]But that's not the dangerous part. The smoke column keeps rising until it hits the upper atmosphere and freezes into [music] ice crystals.

[00:00:35]It becomes a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a thunderstorm born from fire.

[00:00:42]It generates its own lightning, its own wind, and its own firestorms on the ground below.

[00:00:48]The fire is now feeding itself.

[00:00:51]Firefighters call it uncontrollable.

[00:00:53]The only thing that stops it is the fire running out of fuel.

[00:00:59]This happened in Canberra in 2003.

[00:01:02]The government classified it as a fire-generated [music] thunderstorm.

[00:01:07]They had no protocol for it. They still barely do.