The anatomy of a firestorm: Researchers use radar to peer into a bushfire phenomenon

Tasmanians know all too well the impact of the 2013 Dunalley bushfire on the ground, but for the first time, research has revealed what happened above the town on that fateful day.

The time was 3.24pm on January 4, and the bushfire was already burning out of control. Several factors created the perfect storm.

Over the next 24 minutes, a violent column of moist hot air developed over the fire, combining with an unstable atmosphere.

It created what is known as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, or a fire thunderstorm.

Photos captured from a distance what was an incredibly foreboding scene: a gigantic grey mass that many assumed was a smoke plume. It was, in fact, so much worse.

Facing a storm: how bushfires can create their own weather

In the wake of…