"They look like tornadoes, but aren't. Even a house fire or a camp fire can produce little whirls," he said. They can still be problematic but not hugely consequential." A fire tornado is like a ...

A tornado outbreak threatened parts of the South on Saturday, prompting forecasters to issue a rare "particularly dangerous situation" alert amid severe storms that have killed at least one person ...

“You can even see these in a campfire sometimes,” he said. In certain circumstances, however, extremely intense wildfires can create what Swain called “full-scale tornado-strength vortices.