From doug burts flying the tetlin junction fire in Alaska.
https://youtu.be/lh67J4TNPKE
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Um!? I know it’s real…but …was that video real!?
Thank you @TheBrushSlasher. I think those were 60’ spruce trees( intact) flying thru the air WITHIN proximity to the ASM. 
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Australia might be another place to look for fire whirl footage. With the fires they get, their is bound to be some footage out there somewhere. Be interesting to see and compare.
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Video is real and submitted to alaska dnr from from Air attack(Douglas burts)working the fire.
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There are several videos out there with large rotating columns, not super rare but don’t happen often in front of ground resources. As mentioned Aviation get a front seat to them more then those in the dirt. Not talked about very much in fire behavior courses as there isn’t a whole lot of research on the large bad boys that I’ve seen. Let alone build in course work truly diving in to them (because of limited occurrence??) I heard conversation that some believe they come to life from rapid rates of spread creating horizontal vorticies then catching a disturbance to spin it vertical. Wish we had video from birth of these things. Remember the firewhirl with the CDF engine getting burned over on hwy 395 back in the 90s. Its on youtube. Not quite a large rotating column but very impressive. Battling winds of the Sierra Crest I believe???
I’ve been looking for that video but UTL. As far as causation, it’s s local “wind” caused by the escarpment. Air pours from the Sierra’s to the geat basin. Just so happens this area along 395 is the “Rim” of the glass ,as the air pours over the edge toward the low around the 4 corners, or micro- locally, as the dry lake beds and adjacent deserts warm up, cool air pours off of the Sierra’s to replace it.
Yup, exactly. We see this all the way down to through the so cal counties as cool air is getting pulled off all the mountain ranges to the deserts. I’ll find the video for you when I get a chance
Eagle fire I believe. In the 90’s.
Havent been able to find the longer version for a few years. I remember it showing the fire whirl before it came off the hillside down to the hwy. Lots of good indicators, like the Indians fire, etc…
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I have been trying to find the full length video of this for quite some time. If I remember correctly, it is raw news footage and quite a bit longer.
That was the Eagle Fire in LMU around 1989. There was a full length video that showed the whole event up through the burned FFs being air transported by C 202. The video was a training video used for years as part of a series of near Miss/ fatality fires. Every CDF station at the time was issued the series on VHS tapes. Maybe some exist or have been converted to a newer format.
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Heres a time lapse from the Oroville area I believe last year.
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Notice how the storm swirl is clockwise, unlike a hurricane’s counter clockwise rotation.
Wildland 8
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This one appears to have a counter clockwise rotation
Wildland 8
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Also the one for the canyon fire is rotating clockwise.
This is pretty nuts –
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I could think of a few other adjectives to add to that as well based on intelligence and human factors…but interesting fire Behavior for sure!
Our friends in Australia have their versions…
for context
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Lessons learned from the loyalton fire were applied here, a tornado warning was not issued because of evacuations taking place do to the fire but national weather service contacted incident command to make them aware.