Tornadoes can be frightening by themselves, but a filmmaker in Australia recently caught an even scarier sight on video-- a tornado comprised of fire.
Chris Tangey caught the rare natural phenomenon on camera as he was searching for filming locations for a new film in Alice Springs, Australia. After scouting for locations, he went to a cattle station to help the workers there when he suddenly saw the fire tornado.
Tangey was just 300 meters (984ft) from the 30-meter (98 ft) high fire tornado the swirled around the area.
"The weather was perfectly still and it was about 25 degrees Celsius - it was an entirely uneventful day," Tangey told the Daily Mail."Then the next thing a man is yelling 'what the hell is that?' and I turned around and saw a 30-metre fire tornado."
Tangey said there was no wind in the area and the tornado sounded like a fighter jet.
"My jaw just dropped," Tangey said.
The 52-year-old film maker behind Alice Springs Film and Television in central Australia, has captured plenty of things on film, but he had never seen anything quite like this.
"I've been shooting in the outback for 23 years and I have never seen anything like it. We've heard about them but they're never seen," Tangey told the Daily Mail. "If I had known what was about to happen then I would have happily paid $1,000 to watch it."
Tangey, who described the sight as a "once in ten lifetimes experience,' said he witnessed three fire tornadoes swirl for about 40 minutes.
"The whole experience was staggering and the length and variety were astonishing."
A fire tornado, also known as a fire-devil, is a very rare natural occurrence. They occur in conditions of extreme dry heat. It is caused when a column of warm air comes in contact with a fire on the ground, according to the Daily Mail. The warm air can also create ground fires.
These rare fire tornadoes typically last around two minutes but Tangey claims the tornadoes he saw lasted for 40 minutes.
Fire tornadoes can cause significant damage. The tornadoes that Tangey captured took place in the open Australian outback, so there were no injuries or significant damage.
However, a fire tornado that emerged in 1923 during Japan's Great Kanto Earthquake, killed 38,000 people within 15 minutes.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
