Australia's massive wildfires have sparked billowing pyrocumulus clouds — menacing columns of water vapor and smoke that tower over raging firestorms. Just like thunderstorms, the anvil-shaped ...

Wildfires such as the one raging in California, can become hot enough to produce rare mushroom-cloud like formations known as pyrocumulus ... burns trees and other plant life it causes the water ...

The most common weather phenomena wildfires can create include pyrocumulus clouds, fire tornadoes and smoke clouds that cause significant cooling. Fire whirls occur when superheated air near the ...

and has burned nearly 21,000 acres. It also gave rise to a dramatic pyrocumulus cloud. “It was a remarkable wind event that caused multiple destructive wildfires,” said Alex Hoon, an incident ...

California’s Line Fire is burning so intensely that it created its own weather. Dramatic pyrocumulus, or “fire clouds,” exploded over the fire Monday at the exact time a high-resolution ...

Pyrocumulus clouds are actually cumulus clouds, those pretty white clouds that look like heads of cauliflower. Cumulus clouds form in the sky when hot, moist air is warmed by Earth’s surface and ...

Sometimes if you have a volcano or wildfire, a pyrocumulus cloud will form overhead. These are also known as flammagenitus or fire clouds. The intense heat source forces the air upwards ...

A pyrocumulus cloud from the Station fire looms over downtown Los Angeles in August 2009. (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times) ...

But pyrocumulus clouds are caused by heat and fire. The heat and smoke from the wildfire rises up into the atmosphere. As the air rises, it cools causing clouds to form — called a pyrocumulus cloud.