Bushfires crisis: freakish weather event ‘impossible to outrun’

A fire tornado sucks in huge quantities of air and can generate its own clouds, thunder and even rain.

The fire tornado that claimed the life of NSW volunteer firefighter Samuel McPaul was a “pyro-­convection’’ column that sucks in huge quantities of air and can generate­ its own clouds, thunder and even rain.

Senior meteorologist at the Burea­u of Meteorology extreme weather desk Dean Sgarbossa said the freak weather event would be almost impossible to outrun, even in the middle of an open field.

“They travel in speeds comfortably in excess of 100km/h,” he said. “It’s very hard to measure winds around those fires because they’re so dangerous.”

Mr Sgarbossa said fire tornad­oes occurred when huge volumes of air were sucked into a fire, generatin­g a massive cloud called a pyrocumulonimbus. The clouds can generate thunderstorms, intense­ rains and lightning strikes.

Like regular tornadoes, fire tor­nados are known for the intense, random damage they cause. “They can make a lot of debris out of shipping containers, they’re renowned for destroying houses completely,” Mr Sgarbossa said.

People caught in the path of these thunderstorms report hearing roaring noise as the fire ­approaches. “In the Alpine and Black Saturday fires, there were reports of hail coming out of these thunderstorms,’’ he said

NSW Rural Fire Service district manager Superintendent Patrick Westwood said Mr McPaul had been “doing everything right”.

“He thought he was in the right spot — as he was, from what I can understand — and just this freakish weather event that would have to be seen to be believed,’’ Mr Westwood said in a statement.

“Even then, other veteran firefighters don’t believe what they saw — (it) engulfed that vehicle with flame, fire and strong winds and literally picked up an eight-tonne truck and flipped it over.”