Man films California fire burn tree from inside out
A man has filmed an incredible sight amid the horrors of the California wildfires torching the west coast of the US.
Matthew McDermott from Sonoma in Northern California was searching for an escape route from the fires when he came to a nearby town and found a tree being consumed by fire.
But this tree was burning from the inside out – all the way up the trunk. Smoke billows from the top of it.
In photos snapped by Mr McDermott, the tree lets off an eerie orange glow as flames eat away at the inside. It’s almost completely hollow.
“That is the craziest f****** thing I have ever seen,” he says.
“It’s hollowed out the tree.”
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More than 30 people are dead and 250 missing from the out of control fires.
As of Friday afternoon, 17 major wildfires - some encompassing several smaller blazes merged together - have consumed nearly 222,000 acres of dry brush, grasslands and trees across eight counties since erupting on Sunday night.
Officials have said power lines toppled by gale-force winds the first night may have sparked the conflagration, though the official cause remained under investigation.
The fires have destroyed at least 5,700 homes and other buildings, Cal Fire said, with much of the devastation centred in and around the Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, where whole neighbourhoods were reduced to grey ash and smouldering ruins.
