{"id":20132,"date":"2026-07-28T18:53:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20132"},"modified":"2026-07-28T18:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:53:26","slug":"explainer-france-has-seen-its-first-fire-cloud-what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20132","title":{"rendered":"Explainer-France has seen its first &#8216;fire-cloud&#8217;. What is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">By Coralie Lamarque<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">July 28 (Reuters) &#8211; France is grappling with an unprecedented fire season that has led to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people and \u200cdealt a blow to the economy during the peak tourist season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But it&#8217;s not \u200cjust the scale of the fires that is breaking new ground. They are also behaving in ways not seen \u200bbefore in France, including the formation of the country&#8217;s first-ever reported pyrocumulonimbus, or &#8220;fire-cloud&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Below is a look at this rare phenomenon:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">WHAT IS A &#8216;FIRE-CLOUD&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A pyrocumulonimbus is a cloud that forms above a large wildfire when intense heat drives smoke, ash and water vapour high into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;You can \u200cthink of it as like a \u2060chimney, which is a fire at the bottom and the smoke going straight up a chimney into the stratosphere,&#8221; David Bowman, professor of \u2060pyrogeography and fire science at the University of Tasmania, told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While meteorologists can identify conditions that favour their formation, they cannot predict with precision when or where a fire-cloud will develop, said \u200bJean-Christophe \u200bVincendon, wildfire coordinator for the French national meteorological \u200bservice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">HOW DO THEY WORSEN WILDFIRES?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fire-clouds can \u200cmake wildfires more dangerous and less predictable by generating powerful winds that alter a fire&#8217;s direction or producing lightning that ignites new blazes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">When they run out of energy, they can also trigger what&#8217;s known as a &#8220;plume collapse&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;When the plume collapses, it&#8217;s a showering of debris, burning debris,&#8221; said Bowman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR EUROPE?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">French authorities said on Saturday that a \u200cpyrocumulonimbus had been observed near Bordeaux, the first recorded \u200bin France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The phenomenon presents an added challenge for \u200bemergency services because the erratic nature of \u200bfire outbreaks can force authorities to widen evacuation zones as a \u200cprecaution, said Marc Vermeulen, head of the \u200bGironde fire and rescue \u200bservice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Bowman said Western Europe could now expect to see more of this phenomenon, which tends to occur in more extensive wilderness areas, such as in Canada or \u200bAustralia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;This is a very gravely \u200cserious milestone,&#8221; Bowman said. &#8220;It is fascinating, but it is also absolutely disastrous and \u200bterrible, and we just don&#8217;t want more of these things.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Coralie \u200bLamarque, Editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Ros Russell)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Coralie Lamarque July 28 (Reuters) &#8211; France is grappling with an unprecedented fire season that has led to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people and \u200cdealt a blow to the economy during the peak tourist season. But it&#8217;s not \u200cjust the scale of the fires that is breaking new ground. They are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/8467fb38e1ba726a408cf6e080972ccaff6271859097064b53ec7b8f85d99326\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F444c8d25c1bbc50244e107a76a255cfc","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}