LOS ANGELES – An eerie swirl of fire was spotted in the middle of the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles on Friday evening.

According to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, fire vortices, sometimes called “firenadoes,” are rotating columns of hot air and gases that rise from a fire.

As air and gases rise, they also carry with them smoke, debris and even fire, as seen in the fire vortex in the video.

Fire vortex in the Palisades Fire.

(KABC/FOX Weather)

The vortices can range from less than a foot to over 500 feet wide, the NWCG said. Fire whirls on the larger side can be as powerful as a small tornado.

According to the US Forest Service, major fire twisters with wind speeds up to EF-2 tornadoes have uprooted trees, overturned vehicles and ripped roofs off homes.

One of the largest fire twisters in recent memory occurred in 2018 at the Carr Fire in Redding, California, the National Weather Service said. It had wind speeds of about 143 mph, which was consistent with EF-3 tornadoes.

The most devastating fire twister of all time occurred in Tokyo in 1923, according to the USFS. Sparked by fires that broke out across the city following an earthquake, the whirlwind killed about 38,000 people in less than 15 minutes.

FOX weather meteorologist Ari Sarsalari noted that fire twisters are more like dust devils than tornadoes because tornadoes are created by supercell thunderstorms, while dust devils are created by light winds during fair weather.

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The historic 2025 California wildfires continue to rage across Los Angeles. The fires have killed at least 11 people, destroyed at least 10,000 homes and businesses and burned more than 29,000 hectares of land.