Video of Canadian firefighters battling fire tornado goes viral
Sep 26, 2018, 9:34 PM
SALT LAKE CITY ― It’s one of the more recent videos to “catch fire” on the internet.
Last month, Canadian firefighters near Vanderhoof, British Columbia, were facing off against flames in a giant storm when their hose was sucked up into a column of whirling flames.
A video of the event went viral after one of the firefighters, Mary Schidlowsky, posted it on her Instagram.
In her post, Schidlowsky said that the fire tornado pulled the hose “100 plus [feet] in the air before melting it,” a spectacle she said was “definitely a first.” The fiery vortex reached over 200 feet high.
According to Fox News, fire tornados are a rare phenomenon.
“They occur when a gust of extremely hot air blows through the fire at a certain angle, producing a spinning momentum, which then sucks up embers and debris,” Fox News reported.
According to the province’s official website, 2,064 wildfires have occurred in British Columbia since April 1 of this year.
The fires have burned more than 3.3 million acres, making 2018 the “worst fire season on record” for the Western province, CBC reported.