Australia's bushfires have burned so intensely that they have hurled smoke as far away as Chile, SIA reports.
They have also created their own weather systems, including deadly "firestorms" that produce dry lightning and cannot be contained.
How do firestorms happen?
Scientists are still trying to understand how firestorms are created although weather, terrain, vegetation and the characteristics of the fire itself all play a role. But the basics are always the same: large fires cause extreme heat and a large plume of smoke, which interacts with moisture in the air as it rises to create a cloud.
"In the right conditions, the cloud can accelerate into the lower stratosphere," explained Australia's weather bureau. "Collisions of ice particles in the very cold upper parts of these clouds cause a build-up of electrical charge, which is released by giant sparks-lightning. Having produced a thunderstorm, the cloud is now known as 'pyrocumulonimbus'."
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