{"id":18299,"date":"2026-07-28T18:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T01:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=18299"},"modified":"2026-07-28T19:09:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T02:09:52","slug":"surviving-the-pyrocumulonimbus-bradcast-7-28-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=18299","title":{"rendered":"Surviving the Pyrocumulonimbus: ‘BradCast’ 7\/28\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you don’t know what a pyrocumulonimbus is, don’t worry. We’ll explain it all to ya on today’s BradCast<\/i><\/a>…even if we still have trouble pronouncing it. But, today’s logo uses a photo of one from this past weekend in southwestern France. I know, it looks like AI. But Vatican News<\/i> suggests otherwise<\/a> and we should be able to trust them, right? WIRED features another photo<\/a> from the same beach of the same phenomenon. [Audio to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]<\/p>\n

In short, pyrocumulonimbus translates to “fire cloud”. It’s a lightning and thunder storm created by and above a wildfire that is so out of control that it creates its own weather system. That fire-fueled storm then creates still more fires from its lightning strikes and dictates the movement of the fire with its own massive height and unpredictable wind patterns that spread embers, making things even worse. “It\u2019s a feedback loop, not a one-way effect,\u201d one pyroCb expert explains to AP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seen more often in North America and Australia, France<\/b> appears to have experienced the first pyroCb in their history over the weekend, along with their largest-ever peacetime evacuations. Neighboring Spain<\/b> is also wrestling with its own super-charged, record-breaking, climate change-fueled wildfires<\/a> at the same time. Fires have burned more than 162 square miles in France and 193 square miles in Spain in recent days. Nearly 800 square miles have been charred in both nations this year alone.<\/p>\n

Back here at home, suffocating record heat<\/a> in many parts of the country, with wildfires raging out of control in several states in recent days. Most recently in Oregon<\/b> and Washington<\/b> state, though Minnesota<\/b> has been facing down horrible lightning-sparked wildfires over the past month, especially in the Superior National Forest, where the Trump Administration’s DOGE Bros slashed a $10 million, “shovel-ready” Biden Administration project<\/a> last year after taking office which might have prevented<\/i> the massive wildfire disaster still underway in the northeastern part of the Northstar State.<\/p>\n

Those stories help kick off today’s show and seem to set the stage for all that comes after. Among the other stories covered on today’s program…<\/p>\n