During the national tragedy that has been going on for days in Tenerife, some terms have emerged that are not familiar to the affected neighbors and the rest of the Canary Islands who are witnesses of the serious forest fire.
Tenerife continues to suffer the most devastating forest fire in the last 50 years. A fire with abnormal behavior, something that has surprised emergency personnel and has left behind some technical terms that many neighbors affected by the fire had never heard.
Pyrocumulus, paveseo, rolling... are some of the terms that have been used in the informative press conferences to explain some of the events of this very voracious fire. Terms that are not understandable to the average citizen, which is why we explain the meaning of these very important words that are essential to understand why this forest fire is one of the most aggressive and unpredictable, not only in the history of Canary Islands, but from Spain.
During the first days of the fire, the large column of smoke visible from various points on the island was called a pyrocumulus. A pyrocumulus (or flammagenitus cloud) is a large cloud of smoke that forms due to volcanic eruptions or forest fires, as in this case. These clouds reach such a magnitude that the rising hot air can culminate in the formation of vertical clouds that can create their own unique weather, something that can be disastrous for firefighting efforts, as it prevents the deployment of aerial resources and hinders the work of firefighters on the ground.
The term "spark spread" has come into use to describe the advance of flames. To understand this term, it's necessary to know how a fire spreads; to simplify greatly, a fire can be said to spread in three ways : by conduction, by convection, and by radiation. Conduction is the "normal" advance of the flames (from branch to branch, for example); convection is similar to the formation of a pyrocumulus cloud, where hot air, along with sparks, rises and causes flames in higher areas (in the tops of pine trees, for example, which has resulted in striking images of flames just a short distance from firefighting aircraft); and finally, radiation refers to the spread of heat generated by the flames, which can create nearby hotspots.
However, in the forestry field the term paveseo appears, which represents a fourth form of advancement for flames. Inside the paveseo we find the pavesas and the rollers; Sparks are remains of fuel (we understand by fuel everything that is capable of burning and spreading flames, such as branches, pine needles, etc.) that rise with the hot air and are released due to the expansion of the pyrocumulus kilometers from the main focus of the fire. , leaving remains and causing secondary focuses at a considerable distance from the main focus. Paveseo is what has caused many residents of municipalities surrounding Arafo and Candelaria to see remains such as burned branches, ashes and even charred insects on their terraces.
For their part, the rolling ones are all those remains of fuel that are capable of causing other sources by moving around rolling, as the name indicates. The main example would be the pine cones that fall from the trees down the slope and that are either on fire or the high temperature they have causes other outbreaks where they end up falling.
The sparks and rolling stones have been a great headache for the troops working in Tenerife, as they have turned the fire into an incredibly violent and unpredictable phenomenon. Specifically, the sparks pose a critical danger to ground troops carrying out extinguishing work, as it can cause a focus behind said troops and corner them, potentially causing a greater misfortune than what is already being experienced in Tenerife. Some experts have assured that fire jumps of up to 35-40 kilometers have been recorded due to walking.
