Fire clouds: How wildfires make their own thunderstorms

You might have heard about wildfires across the UK and Europe recently.

That's because firefighters have been tackling blazes in lots of places due to the recent hot and dry weather.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in France as the country continues to fight against wildfires.

French firefighting authorities have blamed fire-generated thunderstorms for making the blazes near Bordeaux, a city in France, more difficult to put out.

But what are fire clouds and fire-generated thunderstorms?

Read on to find out more...

Scientists say these clouds are like a thunderstorm made by a fire.

That's because the fire itself provides the energy needed to build the cloud.

The huge amount of heat made by wildfires makes the air above the fire rise rapidly.

That air is carrying smoke, ash and water vapour high into the atmosphere.

As the air rises, it cools and the water vapour becomes a cloud.

If the fire is powerful enough, that cloud can grow into the same type of cloud associated with thunderstorms.

Then winds created by the fire clouds can send fire embers shooting off in all directions!

That makes wildfires unpredictable and harder to fight.

Lightning strikes can also spark more blazes.

When a similar situation happened a few year ago in Australia, Nasa, which is an organisation that explores outer space and studies the Earth, called these type of clouds "the fire-breathing dragon of clouds".