Morgan Fire Vortex

When I first saw this image of the Morgan Fire burning dramatically atop Mount Diablo from day before yesterday I knew immediately what it was. However, I did not expect to see such a thing coming from this particular incident. It seemed slightly oddly coincidental that it should occur not 200 miles away from me not a month following my Fire Tornados ≠ Fire Whirls! column just over two weeks ago. This vortex clearly involves not only the fire at the surface but also the smoke headed up the rotating convection column. However, it is worth noting this is not the sort of fire & smoke vortex generated by a pyrocumulonimbus cloud such as is discussed in that previous posting here. Photo by Matt Granz (all rights reserved).