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Towering fire-fueled thunderclouds can spew as many aerosols as volcanic eruptions

As warming worsens wildfires, it may create conditions ripe for stronger pyrocumulonimbus clouds

big cloud of smoke hovering over the top of the hill tops

Smoke from intense wildfires burning in southeastern Australia’s Orroral Valley on January 31, 2020, generate a massive, stratosphere-piercing pyrocumulonimbus, or pyroCb, cloud. Scientists are seeking to understand whether such clouds may become more common with climate change.

Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

By Carolyn Gramling

- More than 2 years ago

A massive tower of smoke generated by Australian wildfires in late 2019 set a new record for the loftiest and largest fire-spawned thunderstorms ever measured.