In recent days, a video has circulated on Twitter in which something that does not seem possible is seen: a tree that burns inside but not outside as a result of a lightning strike.
Is it real or is it a montage?
The video was posted on Twitter by @sofain on October 19. Since then, it has accumulated more than 500,000 likes, has been shared more than 100,000 times and has received more than 20 million views.
Faced with such a viral event, jokes and memes could not be missing, which have compared such a creepy vision with the gates of Hell, the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings and the portals from the series Stranger Things.
It has also caused controversy, as some users believe that it is just special effects or some form of montage. However, many have come out to defend the video, stating that while it is not a common event, it is authentic.
In fact, burning trees from the inside has been seen before and has earned many headlines in the past. In 2017, images of a tree burning from the inside as a result of wildfires in Sonoma County, California went viral.
The explanation
According to Professor Guillermo Rein, an expert in fire sciences at Imperial College London, it is a relatively rare but fascinating phenomenon.
It is possible for a fire to burn the inside of a tree trunk while leaving little evidence of it from the outside. In the case of the recently released video, it has not been verified what caused the flames, but a possible cause is lightning.
According to Rein, “what probably started as a fire after lightning very slowly cut through a hollow section inside the tree and worked its way up. This process can produce a natural chimney inside the log which then turns into flames and speeds up the burning,” she said.
Another possibility would be the presence of certain fungi within the tree. Some species are capable of devouring them from the inside, leaving them hollow and exposing them to fires like these. As a result, it could burn for days before completely collapsing.
Font:
Newsweek
ScienceAlert