Video shows a vortex form in the Park Fire smoke

A wildfire camera caught the moments when a vortex formed in the thick smoke created by the Park Fire in Northern California.

The images show the smoke begin to twist as very hot air rises and new air rushes in to take its place on Thursday afternoon, just a little over 24 hours after the fire started in Butte County.

The vortexes are also known as fire whirls or whirlwinds, and they form when a particularly strong wildfire begins to create its own weather patterns. They can vary in size from a few feet to several hundred feet.

The firewhirl in Butte County was recorded on a camera northeast of Chico from ALERTCalifornia | UC San Diego, a statewide network of cameras from several providers that are used to monitor fires and weather conditions.

As the rotating air of a fire whirl spins faster, it becomes skinnier and taller and can become more unpredictable, changing direction quickly and potentially spreading embers, causing new fires.

On rare occasions, very large fire whirls may form. A fire whirl in Tokyo in 1923 was estimated to have killed 38,000 people in less than 15 minutes, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

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