This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Firefighters in France are confronting a phenomenon never seen in the region before: fire clouds. It’s a sign of the intensity of the blazes burning—and how climate change is upping the odds that they appear.

A wave of fires has swept over France and Spain, sending hundreds of thousands fleeing. Firefighters on the front lines are facing what a spokesperson for the French firefighter association told AFP was an “operational impossibility”—in other words, a “natural force beyond our control.”

As evidence of how out of control the wildfires in France are, look no further than the skies where the blazes have, in some cases, created their own weather. To form a fire cloud—what........

© Mother Jones