BARDSTOWN, KENTUCKY – September 4, 2015 (Ben Hooper) — A video from a Kentucky lake shows a bourbon-fueled “firenado” twirling across the surface of the water after lightning struck a Jim Beam warehouse.
The video, shared on Facebook by The Weather Channel, shows the fire tornado shooting flames up into the sky above the Kentucky lake after lightning struck a nearby Jim Beam warehouse in 2003 and spilled 800,000 gallons of bourbon onto the surface of the water.
The Weather Channel did not specify the precise location of the retention pond in the video, but a Jim Beam warehouse in Bardstown, Ky., was destroyed by a lightning-caused fire in 2003.
“You have to have exactly the right conditions for something like this to happen. A body of water with a flammable substance on top and weather conditions that whip the fire into a funnel,” The Weather Channel’s Matt Sampson says in the video.
Craig Fluer, a wild land firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, shared a video online last month of a firenado, or “fire whirl,” throwing flames 100 feet into the air during Idaho’s Soda Fire.
“Saw a #firewhirl for the first time last night,” Fluer wrote. “This sucker was shooting flames 100 ft in the air before it passed right in front of the line, all while dropping hot dirt and ash on our helmets.”
