A rotating column would occur in the smoke and be above the ground. This has to do with upper air stability, heat release and steering winds.
That was a classic fire tornado… ground level, pulling in gasses from the fuel and high rotation. If there had been sound, most likely the classic buzzing that you hear…
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I would agree, the difference to me would be on the Carr it was definitely column rotation as seen from above and the destruction below left in the aftermath, this was as you said the classic fire whirl or nado as described. Nice point.
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I think the correct term would be fire whirl.
Edit: True tornados spawned by fires are rare. The first documented one I can think of was the one in Canberra in 2003. There have been a handful in the last couple of years that have been seen on weather radar. Carr, Loyalton, Creek, and maybe a few others. Fire whirls like the one that was on this incident are much more common. Sort of like the difference between dust devils and tornados. This one was a classic fire whirl, driven from the ground and not the column. Still, not something you want to be in the path of.
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What the media calls a thing and the proper terminology are two very different things. It takes quite a bit above an ordinary fire whirl like the one pictured to show up on the weather radar like a tornado or cause enough damage/wind speed to be measured on the Enhanced Fujita scale, making it a legitimate tornado of fire.
https://www.nwcg.gov/term/glossary/fire-whirl
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But I also blame “The Asylum” movie producers for Sharknado.
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Maybe we can talk them in to making a Shark Whirl movie as a prequel.
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