'Firenadoes': Kansas wildfires whip up odd weather phenomenon of whirling fire

Lisa Gutierrez, The Kansas City Star on Feb 18, 2026

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Kansas wildfires on Tuesday whipped up a rare weather phenomenon — rotating columns of fire known as fire whirls.

Or as some people call them: Firenadoes.

Storm-chasing meteorologist Reed Timmer posted a video Tuesday showing a glowing column of fire rising from a wall of wildfire near Englewood, Kansas.

Strong winds pushed wildfires from the Oklahoma panhandle into southwest Kansas where they forced the evacuation of several communities, destroyed buildings, injured firefighters, killed cattle and burned more than 145,000 acres as of Wednesday.

Several fire departments from the Kansas City area sent help. The Kansas City Kansas Fire Department sent two chief officers to Ashland, Kansas, the department wrote on Facebook. A task force from Johnson County also joined the statewide response.

“MASSIVE FIRE STORM with firenadoes and fire whirls advancing west of Englewood, Kansas. Firefighters trying to fight it! Winds 50-70 mph in gusts,” Timmer posted on X.

Timmer, who travels in famously armored vehicles and starred on the Discovery Channel’s “Storm Chasers” from 2008 to 2011, called the fiery whirls “fascinating vortex dynamics.”

Scientists and fire experts haggle over the definition of fire whirls and fire tornadoes — are they same thing? — considered rare and typically birthed by extreme fire incidents. They’re also called “fire devils.”

Firenadoes, aka fire tornadoes, form when rising, intense hot air and gasses from a fire meet turbulent, spinning air creating a vortex. They can be as small as a foot tall or reach hundreds of feet in diameter, according to the U.S. Forest Service. They can jump fire lines and create their own fast winds.

Last year a video of twin fire tornadoes allegedly spinning through California went viral. But it was actually a clip from a fire that burned through parts of Wyoming and Montana in August 2024.

Weather fans around the world took note of the Kansas vortex; one person took it as a sign of the end times.

On Wednesday, the National Weather Service warned that continuing warm, dry, windy conditions could lead to “critical fire weather conditions again on Thursday afternoon.”