Smoky Whirlwind Forms as Fire Crew Works to Contain Bushfire

Firefighters watched on as a smoky whirlwind formed while a crew battled a blaze at the Newnes Plateau west of Sydney on December 10.

As a pair of firefighters from Hartley Rural Fire Brigade hose down the area, a dark whirlwind begins to form to their right, this video shows.

“This perfectly reflects gullies having their own micro weather systems and the fire doing it’s (sic) own thing weather wise,” the brigade posted to Facebook.

The Newnes Plateau fire front is on the western edge of the Gospers Mountain Fire, which has burnt over 300,000 hectares of national park stretching from the Lithgow area through the Hawkesbury to the Central Coast.

Around 90 fires were burning across the state of New South Wales in the morning of December 11, with 40 of them considered out of control.

Over 720 homes had been destroyed by bushfires this fire season, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service announced on December 10. Credit: Hartley Rural Fire Brigade via Storyful