Chopper6 caught what appeared to be a fire tornado on March 19, 2025.
A wildfire in Southwest Miami-Dade closed roads and snarled traffic to the Florida Keys starting on Tuesday, and it also displayed a lesser-seen phenomenon caught on NBC6 cameras: a fire tornado.
A fire tornado or a “firenado” can form within wildfires when the flames heat up the air, causing the surrounding air and smoke to rise very rapidly.
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WATCH HEREThis fire-made rising wind, in addition to the natural fanning breeze, can create vorticities that spin the smoke or flames into a twister. They are usually very brief and weak.
Tornadoes are classified by a rotating column of air that reaches down from the cloud to the ground. In the care of a fire tornado, it’s a rotating column of air that is working from the ground up.
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In the video we captured from Chopper6, the smoke is rotating into more of a “smokenado,” as the fire isn’t large enough to stretch up the entire column--which can happen when flames are fierce. The stronger the wind, the more likely a small firewhirl can intensify into a firenado.
Additionally, the more intense wildfires can actually create severe thunderstorms and tornadoes!
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Pyrocumulus clouds can develop as the very hot air from a fire creates strong updrafts which then cools and condenses on the fire particles in the atmosphere.
According to NOAA, we saw this in 2018 in Redding, California, when a wildfire created a supercell, rotating thunderstorm that developed a strong tornado causing EF-3 damage.
In that case, fire was wrapped in the low levels of the tornado. This is exceptionally rare and very different than the firewhirl or firenado we saw in Southwest Miami-Dade.
